November 23, 2009 in City

Ex-supervisor sues Postal Service over firing

Plaintiff says dismissal stems from not accepting late Netflix batch

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A former Spokane postal supervisor is suing the U.S. Postal Service, saying it wrongly fired him after he refused to accept a late delivery of Netflix DVDs back in 2007.

John A. Branda, a 58-year-old Spokane Valley resident, said the event happened in July 2007 when he was supervisor of the postal service’s inbound bulk mail receiving area at the processing plant near the Spokane Airport.

Branda said he was responsible for accepting bulk mail and packages and making sure they left the dock and moved to the interior of the processing center by 6:30 p.m.

In this instance a Netflix driver arrived several minutes after the 6 p.m. deadline with a truckload of more than 20,000 DVDs that had been handled at a nearby shipping center.

Branda said two other late-arriving customers had arrived just ahead of the Netflix truck. All three were told they were late, Branda said in an interview. “If I took the Netflix (shipment) I would have also had to take the others, and would never had been done by 6:30,” he explained.

Branda finished his shift and went home. He later received a call from a Netflix employee, and then a second call from a Netflix executive. They asked him to order the processing center staff to take the DVDs, according to the lawsuit.

“John was told that unless he (took the mailings) they would ‘escalate’ this incident,” said Mark Hodgson, the Spokane attorney representing Branda.

To that point Branda had never had any disciplinary problems working for the postal service, Hodgson noted.

The following day, said Hodgson, Branda’s superiors placed him on administrative leave and later fired him over the matter.

The suit, in Spokane County Superior Court, seeks unspecified damages from the postal service for its dismissal of Branda.

Earlier this fall Branda also filed a suit in Spokane County, alleging that Netflix’s officials had slandered him over the incident.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Postal Service said attorneys have not yet reviewed the suit and couldn’t comment.

Steve Swasey, a vice president for Netflix in charge of communications, said the company does not comment on pending lawsuits.

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12 comments on this story so far. Add yours!

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  madscientist on November 23 at 7:22 p.m.

  this guy got what has been a long time coming. he was consistantly rude to me dozens of times and showed no enthusiasm what so ever. the bulk mail hub was definetly not
  a customer friendly building.

  Flag as inappropriate

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  PhiltheBibliophil on November 23 at 7:23 p.m.

  Well, if it'd been truly Private Enterprise this would have never happened. You do what you have to do whether you're on the “clock” or not!

  Flag as inappropriate

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  Rifleman__Dodd on November 23 at 7:30 p.m.

  He got the shaft. Rules are the rules. Not there by 6:30 then tough bananas. On the other hand he could have asked his superiors for overtime. Whats the take on that?

  Flag as inappropriate

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  wha wha on November 24 at 8:20 a.m.

  I hope he wins! This is just another show from a big corporation on how they try to muscle their way around. Deadlines are in place for a reason, and if they were late then they missed the deadline. It waits til the next day.

  Flag as inappropriate

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  TheBobCat on November 24 at 11:28 a.m.

  You should check out who the CEO for Netflix is. He used to be the Postmaster General. Netflix gets special treatment in mail processing.

  Flag as inappropriate

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  Fixer on November 24 at 12:04 p.m.

  What?? The Netflix CEO was never the Postmaster General.

  If the Netflix folks had called me at home, I would've been fired for telling them - in graphic detail - what they could do with 20,000 DVD's.

  Flag as inappropriate

• 

  RCinOK on November 24 at 1:16 p.m.

  Managers at those plants, and other USPS facilities, are budgeted a set number of employee hours every week. That's to keep from having to pay OT. They can't, on their own initiative, decide to let you work extra hours. That's the reason for the set delivery times.

  And for the person who said “You do what you have to do whether you're on the “clock” or not!” That is automatic termination in the USPS, no questions asked.

  Flag as inappropriate

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  smallbird on November 24 at 10:25 p.m.

  Well, many years ago (before unions and entitlements) the US postal service used to provide “service”. I don't give a rip about deadlines, especially if those trucks (all three of them) arrived before the posted time. The service should be provided.

  We (the taxpayers) are still paying for this “service”, no matter that it's supposedly “self-sufficient” - LOL

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• 

  czken on November 25 at 8:02 a.m.

  I looked into it and the COO of Netflix was indeed the Postmaster General and that fact makes this story much more interesting.

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  Fixer on November 25 at 9:59 a.m.

  Yes, the one-time COO was the Postmaster General. The original poster stated that the CEO had held the position. Not the same thing.

  William J. Henderson was COO of Netflix from February 2006 until January 2007, according to his bio on Reuters. He had already left the company by the time this incident occurred.

  This conspiracy assumes that Henderson had the power to cause post offices nationwide to give preferential treatment to Netflix, with not one of the 700,000+ U.S. postal employees saying a word.

  The rationale behind the decision to fire Randa would be interesting. The Henderson conspiracy really isn't.

  Flag as inappropriate

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  derpaderp on November 26 at 9:04 a.m.

  The cutoff for deliveries is 6:00. He has to have everything that is delivered, processed and inside by 6:30.

  I have to agree with the OP/plaintiff. If a delivery of 20,000 items had been accepted there is no way his part of the job would have been done in time and that tardiness would have affected everything else down the line.

  Not just 20,000 DVD's, but whatever was on the other 2 trucks that turned up at the same time, or having to deal with 2 other truck drivers getting pissy.

  And then you have to problem that the truck driver then thinks he can get away with it next time causing more delays on other days, like the old saying goes, give them an inch a they'll take a mile.

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  boatmaker63 on November 27 at 11:18 p.m.

  John got the shaft! upper management in the USPS is more along the lines of the german SS. Micro management in the extreem. They fire folks just to cause them to loose a house, a car, or whatever and then in 6 mo you can come back to work! If it wasn't for the pay I would have quit along time ago. So before you pass judgement walk heck 3 feet in his shoes. I hope he wins just to bring the working conditions of the USPS to light for everyone to see.

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