[pct-l] Mail

[Timothy Nye]

Bill,

Thanks for the input!  I certainly wasn't impuning VVR and I hope that you
realize it.

The regulations are pretty explicit, at least to me, and  neither applies to
either the cafe or VVR in my opinion.  Everything in a regulation or law has
to be taken as whole and the emphasis upon one part to the exclusion of
another violates the rules of statutory construction.  I didn't realize that
another point of contention had arisen about the end point of the
regulation's applicability.

The fact of the matter is that section 1703 refers to whom a post is
"directed to," as the end point.  If the government had intended to say to
whom the post was 'addressed to', which is much more limiting in my opinion,
they could have, but they did not.  'Directed to' is a more expansive term
of art and includes, again in my opinion, the person or entity to whom a
post is sent to "in care of" for another.

Another rule of statutory construction is that absent a codification of the
intended definition of a word it carries it's normal meaning   How someone
can maintain that a post sent to, say: "Joe Hiker in care of VVR" is not a
post 'directed to' VVR, at which point the postal service regs washs it's
hands of the whole matter, eludes me, but then I haven't searched for case
law to see if there is a controlling appellate opinion that was published as
precedent that actually addresses this point.  There could be, and if there
is I'm betting it's busily being researched this very minute.  Stand by.

I'll include the standard boilerplate disavowal of this being intended as
legal advice and that this correspondence does not explicitly or implicitly
create an attorney client relationship and I disavow any liability for any
reliance on this or any other contributions to this general series of
threads.

With that said, I am 30+ year lawyer and owned my own firm for over 20 years
before selling it and retiring a couple of years ago.  That business owner
part gives me a little more insight, I believe, into the other side of this
discussion.  People rarely think about the risks, efforts and sacrifices
made by small business owners in an effort to succeed.  It's my belief that
a fear of jeopardizing the life savings and sacrifice that such an
enterprise entails ( how many on this thread have signed a 5 lease for which
they will remain liable for payment even if the enterprise fails?) is the
likely motivating factor here.  Just sayin'.

Now, more importantly, would you accept a package for me this year?  (Cheesy
grin)  You can even open it if you want; just don't leave it in a public
place!

And so with that my friends, I will yield the floor.  (OK, I guess I must
miss the law to a degree, but please don't tell my wife!)