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Mailbox Miscellaneous

It’s inevitable. Every now and then a plow truck will destroy a mailbox. Accidents with mailboxes are an area of potential friction between residents and highway department.

This article attempts to lessen the friction. There is advice from Bernie Waugh, NHMA Legal Counsel, the postal service’s suggestions for mailbox placement, a sample of local public works officials methods to cope with destroyed mailboxes, and suggestions for creating ordinances to deal with issues of liability.

Bernie Waugh on Mailboxesmailbox

Bernie Waugh addresses mailboxes in A Hard Road to Travel.

The U.S. Congress, acting under the "post road" class of the U.S. Constitution (Article I, § 8, Clause 7) has declared all highways maintained by a sate and its political subdivisions as post roads. Placement of mailboxes within the right-of-way is thus legitimate "viatic use" of the highway, and snow plow damage to a properly placed mailbox should be viewed no differently than damage to any other abutter property—if the mailbox is damaged by town negligence, the town will likely be liable.

(Viatic use means, any use reasonably incidental to the purpose of traveling. It has been held to include the moving of buildings from one site to another; people gathering to watch a parade; children at play rolling hoops; hoses pumping gas to cars parked in the street; and roadside parking.)

But the question is: what is "properly placed?" Can towns regulate mailboxes? Well, yes and no. The U.S. Postal Service has not limited the extent to which towns can regulate their own highways. If fact postal customers are explicitly required to obey any local regulations when erecting mailboxes (39 CFR, Sec. 111.2(a); Domestic Mail Manual, Sec. DO41.2.7). On the other hand, the Postal Service does regulate how a mailbox must be placed by the owner in order to have mail delivered to it. So think of the town and the post office as two independent overlapping regulatory authorities. Hopefully the two sets of regulations will contain some points of intersection and consistency. If town regulations are so strict as to leave the citizens no options which also comply with postal service regulations, then folks just won’t get their mail. This may not be a legal problem, but it sure-as-heck could be a political problem! If you want to regulate mailbox placement, check with your postmaster to make sure the owners are left with delivery options.

mailboxUnited States Postal Service on Mailboxes

The United States Postal Service website states that: mailboxes must be placed at a vertical height of 3.5 feet and 4 feet from the road surface.

The Postal Service doesn’t say anything about what type of posts or supports the customer should use. Nor do they say if it is the post that should be placed 4 feet from the road surface, or just the box.

mailboxPublic Works Officials on Mailboxes

How do highway departments cope with being one of the (as Bernie puts it), "two independent overlapping regulatory authorities?"

Recently, the UNH T2 Center surveyed a number of towns and found that municipalities try to make a broken mailbox right. Of the towns surveyed, none have a mailbox policy or ordinance. Jack Petkus, of Nashua, says "we try to replace each mailbox that we knock down with a standard one but when we get resistance we replace ‘in kind.’ After a knockdown, we try to make an immediate temporary fix so the resident can get mail and then do a permanent replacement in the spring. If we get one that was improperly positioned, we usually replace those but we strive to put it back right." He adds, "I shudder to think what we are going to do as granite mailbox posts and handmade unique (and expensive) boxes become more prevalent. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Nashua does what most towns do: replace the broken mailbox with a standard mailbox and perform the labor themselves. In Bedford, they don’t replace mailboxes at their cost if the post is old, or made of untreated lumber. If the post and box are placed in the proper location, then they will replace the mailbox. If, the mailbox appears to have been "faulty," then the mailbox is not replaced. This is done on a case by case situation.

Most towns use a standard mailbox, but what if an expensive mailbox is broken? Municipalities should create an ordinance before these questions come up is the best way to deal with this.

mailboxSuggestions

When mailboxes are hit, there are three major questions:

  1. Who is at fault?
  2. What type of mailbox to use in replacement?
  3. And, liability.

To address these issues selectmen should create a mailbox ordinance. RSA 41:11 allows for a mailbox ordinance.

The ordinance should specify placement of the mailbox, the distance from the road surface and reference to the postal services specification for height. The municipal ordinance should not conflict with the postal services.

For people who want "fancy" mailboxes, but to keep the town from having to replace them, the ordinance might say: "All mailboxes shall conform to the following specifications (then describe the mailbox you wish to use). A mailbox may deviate from this specification, but if it is damaged by the town, residents replace it."

Local ordinances should also address potentially dangerous posts. For instance, a granite post might be considered more dangerous than a lumber post. The ordinance might say the post can be made of (specifying) materials and not of (specify materials).

The ordinance should say, "mailboxes will be replaced by the town, when the mailbox was hit by a plow, and as long as the mailbox was properly placed in accordance with the mailbox ordinance."

mailboxConclusion

These methods should decease the friction between residents and its highway department. Also, they might save the municipality from having to replace an expensive mailbox that was incorrectly placed.

Sources:

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