author: Chief Justice Rehnquist Justice Ginsburg,

text:
    DUSENBERY v. UNITED STATES
    No. 00-6567.
    Argued October 29, 2001
    Decided January 8, 2002

      Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which O’Con-nor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ., joined. GiNsburg, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens, Souter, and Breyer, JJ., joined, post, p. 173.

      Allison M. Zieve, by appointment of the Court, 532 U. S. 940, argued the cause for petitioner. With her on the briefs was Alan B. Morrison.

      Jeffrey P. Minear argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Olson, Assistant Attorney General Chertoff, Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben, and William C. Brown.

         Julia M. Carpenter filed a brief for the DKT Liberty Project as amicus curiae urging reversal.

   Chief Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case concerns the adequacy of the means employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to provide notice to a federal prisoner of his right to contest the administrative forfeiture of property seized during the execution of a search warrant for the residence where he was arrested.

In April 1986, officers of the FBI arrested petitioner Larry Dean Dusenbery at a house trailer in Atwater, Ohio. Later that day, they obtained and executed a search warrant, seizing drugs, drug paraphernalia, several firearms, a ballistic knife, an automobile registered in the name of petitioner's stepmother, and various other items of personal property. Among these was $21,989 in cash, $394 of which had been found on petitioner’s person, $7,600 in the inside pocket of a coat in the dining area and $14,045 in a briefcase found on the floor in the living room.

Two months later, petitioner pleaded guilty in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio to a charge of possession with intent to distribute 813 grams of cocaine in violation of 21 U. S. C. § 841(a)(1) (1988 ed.). He was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment followed by 6 years of special parole. Two years later, the United States, no longer expecting the firearms and knife to be used as evidence in a future prosecution, and unable to determine their rightful owner, sought and obtained an order from the District Court authorizing the FBI to destroy them. The FBI also began the process of administratively forfeiting the cash and the automobile.

At this time, designated agents of the FBI were allowed to dispose of property seized pursuant to the Controlled Substances Act, 84 Stat. 1242, 21 U. S. C. §801 et seq. (1988 ed.), without initiating judicial proceedings if the property’s value did not exceed $100,000, and if no person claimed an interest in the property within 20 days after the Government published notice of its intention to forfeit and sell or otherwise dispose of it. § 881(a)(6) (subjecting to forfeiture all proceeds traceable to an unlawful exchange for a controlled substance and all moneys, negotiable instruments, and securities traceable to such an exchange); § 881(d) (providing that laws relating to summary and judicial forfeiture for violation of the customs laws apply to controlled substance forfeitures); 19 U. S. C. §§ 1607-1609 (1988 ed.) (setting forth customs law requirements for summary forfeitures).

To effect such a forfeiture, the statute required the agency to send written notice of the seizure together with information on the applicable forfeiture procedures to each party who appeared to have an interest in the property. § 1607(a). It also required the publication for at least three successive weeks of a similar notice in a newspaper of general circulation in the judicial district in which the forfeiture proceeding was brought. Ibid.; 21 CFR §1816.75 (1988). The FBI sent letters of its intention to forfeit the cash by certified mail addressed to petitioner care of the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Milan, Michigan, where he was then incarcerated; to the address of the residence where petitioner was arrested; and to an address in Randolph, Ohio, the town where petitioner’s mother lived. App. 21-28. It placed the requisite legal notice in three consecutive Sunday editions of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Id., at 24-30. Similar practices were followed with respect to the proposed forfeiture of the car. Brief for Petitioner 3. The FBI received no response to these notices within the time allotted, and so declared the items administratively forfeited. Ibid.; App. 15. An FBI agent turned over the cash to the United States Marshals Service on December 13,1988. Id., at 16-17.

Nearly five years later, petitioner moved in the District Court pursuant to Rule 41(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure seeking return of all the property and funds seized in his criminal case. The United States responded that all of the items of petitioner’s property that were not used in his drug business had been returned to him and that other items seized had long since been forfeited to the Government. The District Court denied the motion, reasoning that any challenge to the forfeiture proceedings should have been brought in a civil action, not as a motion ancillary to petitioner’s now-closed criminal case. Case No. 5:95-CV-1872 (ND Ohio, Oct. 5, 1995).

The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit vacated the District Court’s judgment and remanded for further proceedings. Judgt. order reported at 97 F. 3d 1451 (1996), App. 31. The Court of Appeals agreed that petitioner could not pursue his claim through a Rule 41(e) motion since the criminal proceedings against him had been completed. It held that the District Court abused its discretion, however, by not construing the motion as a civil complaint seeking equitable relief for a due process challenge to adequacy of the notice of the administrative forfeiture.

Following remand, the District Court entered an order allowing discovery and subsequently presided over a telephone deposition of James Lawson, an Inmate Systems Officer who began to work in the mailroom at- FCI Milan early in 1988 and who had submitted an affidavit in the case. Lawson testified that he signed the certified mail receipt for the FBI’s notice to petitioner regarding the cash. App. 49-50. He also testified about the procedures within FCI Milan for accepting, logging, and delivering certified mail addressed to inmates. Id., at 50. Lawson explained that the procedure would have been for him to log the mail in, for petitioner’s “Unit Team” to sign for it, and for it then to be given to petitioner. Id., at 51. But he said that a paper trail no longer existed because the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) had a policy of holding prison logbooks for only one year after they were closed. Id., at 51-52.

Both parties moved for summary judgment. The District Court ruled that the Government’s sending of notice by certified mail to petitioner’s place of incarceration satisfied his due process rights as to the cash. Case No. 5:95-CV-1872 (ND Ohio, Jan. 19, 1999). The Court of Appeals affirmed. 223 F. 3d 422 (CA6 2000). Citing Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306, 314 (1950), it held that the Government’s notice of the cash forfeiture comported with due process even in. the absence of proof that the mail actually reached petitioner. 223 F. 3d, at 424.

Because Courts of Appeals have reached differing conclusions about what the Due Process Clause requires of the United States when it seeks to provide notice to a federal inmate of its intention to forfeit property in which the inmate appears to have an interest, we granted certiorari to consider the adequacy of the FBI’s notice to petitioner of its intended forfeiture of the cash. 531 U. S. 1189 (2001). We now affirm the judgment below.

The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits the United States, as the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the States, from depriving any person of property without “due process of law.” From these “cryptic and abstract words,” Mullane, supra, at 313, we have determined that individuals whose property interests are at stake are entitled to “notice and an opportunity to be heard.” United States v. James Daniel Good Real Property, 510 U. S. 43, 48 (1993).

Petitioner urges that, in analyzing his due process claim, we follow the approach articulated in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319 (1976). Brief for Petitioner 12; Reply Brief for Petitioner 7. There we spoke of a balancing of three factors: (1) the private interest that will be affected by the official action, (2) a cost-benefit analysis of the risks of an erroneous deprivation versus the probable value of additional safeguards, and (3) the Government’s interest, including the function involved and any fiscal and administrative burdens associated with using different procedural safeguards. 424 U. S., at 335. The United States, on the other hand, urges us to apply the method set forth in Mullane, supra, which espouses a more straightforward test of reasonableness under the circumstances. Brief for United States 27.

We think Mullane supplies the appropriate analytical framework. The Mathews balancing test was first conceived in the context of a due process challenge to the adequacy of administrative procedures used to terminate Social Security disability benefits. Although we have since invoked Mathews to evaluate due process claims in other contexts, see Medina v. California, 505 U. S. 437, 444 (1992) (citing cases), we have never viewed Mathews as announcing an all-embracing test for deciding due process claims. Since Mullane was decided, we have regularly turned to it when confronted with questions regarding the adequacy of the method used to give notice. See, e. g., New York City v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 344 U. S. 293, 296 (1953); Walker v. City of Hutchinson, 352 U. S. 112, 115 (1956); Schroeder v. City of New York, 371 U. S. 208, 210 (1962); Robinson v. Hanrahan, 409 U. S. 38, 39 (1972) (per curiam); Greene v. Lindsey, 456 U. S. 444, 448 (1982); Mennonite Bd. of Missions v. Adams, 462 U. S. 791, 797 (1983); Tulsa Professional Collection Services, Inc. v. Pope, 485 U. S. 478, 484 (1988). We see no reason to depart from this well-settled practice.

Mullane itself involved a due process challenge to the constitutional sufficiency of notice to beneficiaries on judicial settlement of accounts by the trustee of a common trust fund established under state law. A trustee of such a common trust fund sought a judicial decree settling its accounts as against all parties having an interest in the fund. The only notice of the application for this decree was by court-ordered publication in a newspaper for four successive weeks. 339 U. S., at 309-310. We held that this notice was constitutionally defective as to known persons whose whereabouts were also known, because it was not “reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections.” Id., at 314, 319; see also id., at 315 (“The means employed must be such as one desirous of actually informing the absentee might reasonably adopt to accomplish it”).

Was the notice in this ease “reasonably calculated under all the circumstances” to apprise petitioner of the pendency of the cash forfeiture? The Government here carried its burden of showing the following procedures had been used to give notice. The FBI sent certified mail addressed to petitioner at the correctional facility where he was incarcerated. At that facility, prison mailroom staff traveled to the city post office every day to obtain all the mail for the institution, including inmate mail. App. 36. The staff signed for all certified mail before leaving the post office. Once the mail was transported back to the facility, certified mail was entered in a logbook maintained in the mailroom. Id., at 37. A member of the inmate’s Unit Team then signed for the certified mail to acknowledge its receipt before removing it from the mailroom, and either a Unit Team member or another staff member distributed the mail to the inmate during the institution’s “mail call.” Id., at 37, 51.

Petitioner does not seriously contest the FBI’s use of the postal service to send its certified letter to him, a method our cases have recognized as adequate for known addressees when we have found notice by publication insufficient. Tr. of Oral Arg. 11 (“This case is not really a mailed notice case because the procedures that are inadequate are the procedures that happened after the mailing”). Instead, he argues that the notice was insufficient because due process generally requires “actual notice” to interested parties prior to forfeiture, which he takes to mean actual receipt of notice. Brief for Petitioner 8,15, 18-19; see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 23. For this proposition he cites Mennonite Bd. of Missions, 462 U. S., at 796-797. But the only sentence in Mennonite arguably supporting petitioner’s view appears in a footnote. That sentence reads: “Our cases have required the State to make efforts to provide actual notice to all interested parties comparable to the efforts that were previously required only in in 'personam actions.” Id., at 797, n. 3. It does not say that the State must provide actual notice, but that it must attempt to provide actual notice. Since Mennonite concluded that mailed notice of a pending tax sale to a mortgagee of record was constitutionally sufficient, id., at 799, the sentence is at best inconclusive dicta for the view petitioner espouses.

We note that none of our cases cited by either party has required actual notice in proceedings such as this. Instead, we have allowed the Government to defend the “reasonableness and hence the constitutional validity of any chosen method ... on the ground that it is in itself reasonably certain to inform those affected.” Mullane, 339 U. S., at 315.

Petitioner argues that because he was housed in a federal prison at the time of the forfeiture, the FBI could have made arrangements with the BOP to assure the delivery of the notice in question to him. Brief for Petitioner 17. But it is hard to see why such a principle would not also apply, for example, to members of the Armed Forces both in this country and overseas. Undoubtedly the Government could make a special effort in any case (just as it did in the movie “Saving Private Ryan”) to assure that a particular piece of mail reaches a particular individual who is in one way or another in the custody of the Government. It could, for example, have allowed petitioner to make an escorted visit to the post office himself in order to sign for his letter. But the Due Process Clause does not require such heroic efforts by the Government; it requires only that the Government’s effort be “reasonably calculated” to apprise a party of the pendency of the action; “ ‘[t]he criterion is not the possibility of conceivable injury but the just and reasonable character of the requirements ....’” Mullane, supra, at 315.

Nor does the Due Process Clause require the Government to substitute the procedures proposed by petitioner for those in place at FCI Milan in 1988. See Brief for Petitioner 17 (suggesting that the Government could send the notice to a prison official with a request that a prison employee watch the prisoner open the notice, cosign a receipt, and mail the signed paper back to the agency from which it came). The suggested procedures would work primarily to bolster the Government’s ability to establish that the prisoner actually received notice of the forfeiture, a problem petitioner perceives to be the FCI Milan’s procedures’ primary defect. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 15 (explaining that the problem is that “[t]he procedure doesn’t require verification of delivery”). But as we have noted above, our cases have never required actual notice. The facts of the present case, moreover, illustrate the difficulty with such a requirement. The letter in question was sent to petitioner in 1988, but the claim of improper notice was first asserted in 1993. What might be reasonably fresh in the minds of all parties had the question arisen contemporaneously will surely be stale five years later. The issue would often turn on disputed testimony as to whether the letter was in fact delivered to petitioner. The title to property should not depend on such vagaries.

Justice Ginsburg’s dissent does not contend, as petitioner does, that due process could be satisfied in this case only with actual notice. It makes an alternative argument that the FBI’s notice was constitutionally flawed because it was “ ‘substantially less likely to bring home notice’ than a feasible substitute,” post, at 174 (quoting Mullane, supra, at 314-315) — namely, the methods used currently by the BOP, which generally require an inmate to sign a logbook acknowledging delivery, see post, at 180,181-182 (describing current BOP procedures and noting the practicability of BOP Unit Team member’s “linger[ing]” a little longer to secure an inmate’s signature). Just how requiring the end recipient to sign for a piece of mail substantially improves the reliability of the delivery procedures leading up to that person’s receipt, Justice Ginsburg’s dissent does not persuasively explain. Nor is there any probative evidence to this effect in the record.

Even if one accepts that the BOP’s current procedures improve delivery to some degree, our cases have never held that improvements in the reliability of new procedures necessarily demonstrate the infirmity of those that were replaced. Other areas of the law, moreover, have for strong policy reasons resisted rules crediting the notion that, “ ‘because the world gets wiser as it gets older, therefore it was foolish before.’ ” Advisory Committee’s Notes on Fed. Rule Evid. 407, 28 U. S. C. App., p. 864 (1994 ed.) (quoting Hart v. Lancashire & Yorkshire R. Co., 21 Law Times Rep. (n. s.) 261, 263 (1869), and explaining that Rule 407’s prohibition against use of subsequent remedial measures to prove fault attempts to avoid discouraging persons from taking steps to further safety). In this case, we believe the same principle supports our conclusion that the Government ought not be penalized and told to “try harder,” post, at 180, simply because the BOP has since upgraded its policies.

Here, the use of the mail addressed to petitioner at the penitentiary was clearly acceptable for much the same reason we have approved mailed notice in the past. Short of allowing the prisoner to go to the post office himself, the remaining portion of the delivery would necessarily depend on a system in effect within the prison itself relying on prison staff. We think the FBI’s use of the system described in detail above was “reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise [petitioner] of the pendency of the action.” Mullane, 339 U. S., at 314. Due process requires no more.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

Justice Ginsburg,

with whom Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, and Justice Breyer join, dissenting.

“ ‘The fundamental requisite of due process of law is the opportunity to be heard.’ Grannis v. Ordean, 234 U. S. 385, 394 [(1914)]. This right to be heard has little reality or worth unless one is informed that the matter is pending and can choose for himself whether to appear or default, acquiesce or contest.” Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306, 314 (1950). Today’s decision diminishes the safeguard of notice, affording an opportunity to be heard, before one is deprived of property. As adequate to notify prisoners that the Government seeks forfeiture of their property, the Court condones a procedure too lax to reliably ensure that a prisoner will receive a legal notice sent to him. The Court does so despite the Government’s total control of a prison inmate’s location, and the evident feasibility of tightening the notice procedure “as [would] one desirous of actually informing [the prisoner].” Id., at 315. Because the Court, without, warrant in fact or law, approves a procedure “less likely to bring home notice” than a feasible alternative, ibid., I dissent.

I

The Court correctly identifies the foundational case on reasonable notice as a due process requirement, Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., and the core instruction: “[Deprivation of... property by adjudication [must] be preceded by notice and opportunity for hearing appropriate to the nature of the case.” Id., at 313. Further, the Court recognizes that petitioner Dusenbery’s complaint does not rest on the Government’s use of the postal service to dispatch, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Milan, Michigan, notice of an impending forfeiture. Ante, at 169. Were this case about the adequacy of the transmission of information from the FBI to the FCI, swift summary judgment for the Government, I agree, would be in order. But the case we confront is not about notice to the prison, the warden, or the prison mailroom personnel. It is about the adequacy of notice to an individual held in the Government’s custody, a prisoner whose location the Government at all times knows and tightly controls.

What process did the Government provide for getting the FBI’s forfeiture notice from the FCI’s mailroom to prisoner Busenbery’s cell? On that key transmission the record is bare. It contains no statement by FCI Milan’s warden concerning any set of safeguards routinely employed. The Government presented only the affidavit and telephone deposition of James Curtis Lawson, an “Inmate Systems Officer” assigned to FCI Milan’s mailroom. App. 36-37, 46-53. On the mailroom to prisoner transmission, Lawson said simply this: “The [Housing] Unit Team member or a correctional staff member will [after signing the mailroom logbook] distribute the mail.to the inmates during the institution’s mail call.” App. 37. Lawson did not know whether notice was in fact delivered to Dusenbery. Nor would he have such knowledge or information regarding any other prisoner. As Lawson clarified on deposition, he was not acquainted with particular practices or systems governing mail once it left the mailroom^ because that was not “pertinent to [his] department.” App. 52. According to Lawson, “[t]hat would be case workers’ responsibility,” ibid.; but no caseworker filled in the evidentiary gap.

Was the prison to prisoner mode of transmission described by Officer Lawson “substantially less likely to bring home notice” than a feasible substitute that would place no “impractical obstacles” in the Government’s way? Mullane, 339 U. S., at 314-315. The answer, in my judgment, is certainly yes. Before detailing why that is my view, I will examine what the Court does not elaborate: In full scope, what does Mullane, the foundational case, teach about the nexus to the forum and notice to interested persons necessary to make an adjudication fair and workable, and thus compatible with due process?

II

Mullane was a proceeding in which the trustee of a common trust fund sought from a New York Surrogate Court an order settling all questions concerning the management of the common fund during a statutorily specified accounting period. Many of the beneficiaries resided outside New York. Could a New York court adjudicate such a case despite the large numbers of nonresidents affected? And if a New York court could entertain the case, would notice by publication, for which the New York statute provided, suffice to inform beneficiaries of the proceeding? The Court recognized that these were separate questions calling for discrete inquiries.

New York had jurisdiction to adjudicate despite the dispersion of trust beneficiaries among several States, the Court explained, because the trust “exist[ed] by the grace of [New York’s] laws and [was] administered under the supervision of its courts.” Id., at 313. If New York could not take hold of the case, no other State would be better situated to do so. Without a forum for periodic settlement of the trustee’s accounts, the common fund device would be unworkable. Under the circumstances, New York’s interest “in providing means [periodically] to close trusts [of the kind involved in Múlleme was] ... so insistent and rooted in custom as to establish beyond doubt the right of its courts to determine the interests of all claimants.” Ibid.

Having thus settled the question of the nexus between the forum and the controversy necessary to establish jurisdiction to adjudicate, the Court turned to the means by which potentially affected persons must be apprised of the proceeding: “Quite different from the question of a state’s power to discharge trustees,” the Court began, “is that of the [full] opportunity it must give beneficiaries to contest.” Ibid.

“Personal service of written notice,” the Court acknowledged, “is the classic form of notice always adequate in any type of proceeding.” Ibid. But that classic form, the Court next developed, “has not in all circumstances been regarded as indispensable to the process due to residents, and it has more often been held unnecessary as to nonresidents.” Id., at 314. For beneficiaries whose interests or addresses were unknown to the trustee, notice by publication would do,faute de mieux. Id., at 318. But “[a]s to known present beneficiaries of known place of residence,” Múlleme instructed, notice by publication would not do. Ibid. Personal service on “the large number of known resident or nonresident beneficiaries,” however, would “seriously interfere with the proper administration of the fund.” Id., at 318-319 (delay as well as expense rendered such service impractical). For that group, the Court indicated, “ordinary mail to the record addresses,” which might be sent with periodic income remittances, was the minimal due process requirement. Id., at 318. The risk that notice would not reach even all known beneficiaries, the Court reasoned, was justifiable, for the common trust

“presupposes a large number of small interests. The individual interest does not stand alone but is identical with that of a class. The rights of each in the integrity of the fund and the fidelity of the trustee are shared by many other beneficiaries. Therefore notice reasonably certain to reach most of those interested in objecting is likely to safeguard the interests of all, since any objection sustained would inure to the benefit of all.” Id., at 319.

In a series of cases fallowing Mullane, the Court similarly condemned notice by publication or posting as not reasonably calculated to inform persons with known interests in a proceeding. See Tulsa Professional Collection Services, Inc. v. Pope, 485 U. S. 478 (1988) (notice by publication inadequate as to estate creditors whose identities were known or ascertainable by reasonably diligent efforts); Mennonite Bd. of Missions v. Adams, 462 U. S. 791 (1983) (notice by publication and posting inadequate to inform real property mortgagee of a proceeding to sell the mortgaged property for nonpayment of taxes); Greene v. Lindsey, 456 U. S. 444 (1982) C «ting summons on door of a tenant’s apartment provided inadequate notice of eviction proceedings); Schroeder v. City of New York, 371 U. S. 208 (1962) (publication plus signs posted on trees inadequate to notify property owners of condemnation proceedings); Walker v. City of Hutchinson, 352 U. S. 112 (1956) (publication as sole notice to property owners inadequate to inform them of condemnation proceedings). In these cases, the Court identified mail service as a satisfactory supplement to statutory provisions for publication or posting. But the decisions, it bears note, do not bless mail notice as an adequate-in-all-circumstances substitute for personal service. They home in on the particular proceedings at issue and do not imply that in the mine-run civil action, a plaintiff may dispense with the straightforward, effective steps required to secure proof of service or waiver of formal service. See Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 4(d), 4(1).

I — < 1 — ( H-H

Returning to the instant case and the question Mullane identified as pivotal: Was the mail delivery procedure at FCI Milan “substantially less likely to bring home notice [to prison inmates]” than a “feasible . . . substitute]”? 339 U. S., at 315; cf. Mennonite Bd., 462 U. S., at 803 (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (ability of “members of a particular class . . . to safeguard their interests . . . must be taken into account when we consider the ‘totality of the circumstances,’ as required by Mullane”). Prisoner Dusenbery’s situation differs dramatically from that of persons for whom we suggested ordinary mail service, without more, would suffice. Those differences, I am persuaded, are dispositive.

A beneficiary not in receipt of actual notice in Mullane would nevertheless be protected, in significant measure, by beneficiaries who did receive notice and might have advanced objections shared by the large class of similarly situated persons. Moreover, the Surrogate’s Court was obliged to review the trustee’s accounting before approving it. In contrast, Dusenbery’s alleged ownership interest stands alone. No others are similarly situated. Dusenbery claims that the money the FBI seized at his home was not traceable to an unlawful exchange for a controlled substance. See 21 U. S. C. § 881(a)(6) (1988 ed.). Absent notice of the forfeiture proceeding, Dusenbery had no opportunity to present that claim before an impartial forum.. See 19 U. S. C. § 1609 (1988 ed.) (if no claim is filed within the prescribed time, the Government shall declare the property forfeited).

Nor can any undue hardship justify a less than careful endeavor actually to inform Dusenbery that his property is the subject of an impending forfeiture. The agency responsible for giving notice of the forfeiture, here, the FBI, is part of the same Government as the prisoner’s custodian, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). As the Second Circuit observed, “[w]hen [a federal] investigating agency [seeks] a prisoner’s cooperation in testifying against some important wrongdoer, it has no difficulty delivering the message in a manner that insures receipt.” Weng v. United States, 137 F. 3d 709, 715 (1998). Similarly, the federal forfeiting agency should encounter no difficulty in “secur[ing] the [BOP’s] cooperation in assuring that the notice will be delivered to the [prisoner] and that a reliable record of the delivery will be created.” Ibid.

A further factor counsels care to inform a prisoner that his Government is proceeding against him or his property. A prisoner receives his mail only through the combined good offices of two bureaucracies which he can neither monitor nor control: The postal service must move the mail from the sender to the prison, and the prison must then move the mail from the prison gates to the prisoner’s hands. That the first system can be relied upon does not imply that the second is acceptable. See United States v. One Toshiba Color Television, 213 F. 3d 147, 154 (CA3 2000); accord, Weng, 137 F. 3d, at 715; cf. Houston v. Lack, 487 U. S. 266, 271 (1988) (Court recognized that “the pro se prisoner has no choice but to entrust the forwarding of [mail] to prison authorities whom he cannot control or supervise and who may have every incentive to delay”; Court therefore held that pro se prisoner’s notice of appeal must be regarded as “filed” when delivered to prison authorities for mailing). In the cases in which we indicated that mail notice would be sufficient, by contrast, receipt hinged only upon the dependability of the postal service, “upon which prudent men will ordinarily rely in the conduct of important affairs.” Greene, 456 U. S., at 455; see also Mullane, 339 U. S., at 319 (“[T]he mails today are recognized as an efficient and inexpensive means of communication.”); United States Postal Service, 2000 Comprehensive Statement on Postal Operations 91 (Table 5.1) (on-time delivery rate of first class mail between 87% and 94%).

The majority asserts that “[t]he Government here carried its burden of showing the . . . procedures . . . used to give notice.” Ante, at 168. As to the prison to prisoner transmission, that assertion is groundless, for the Government carriéd no burden whatever. It introduced nothing to show the reasonableness or reliability of the mailroom to cell delivery at FCI Milan at the time of the forfeiture in question. See supra, at 174.

Beyond doubt, the Government can try harder, without undue inconvenience or expense. Indeed, it now does so: As the Government informed the Court on brief, prison employees currently “must not only record the receipt of the certified mail and its distribution, but the prisoner himself must sign a log book acknowledging delivery.” Brief for United States 24 (citing BOP Program Statement 5800.10.409, 5800.10.409A (Nov. 3,1995)). If a prisoner refuses to sign, a prison officer must document that refusal. BOP Operations Memorandum 035-99 (5800), p. 2 (July 19, 1999). The Government noted additionally that administrative forfeiture notices, along with “appropriately marked congressional, judicial, law enforcement, and attorney correspondence,” are now marked “special mail,” to be “opened only in the inmate’s presence.” Brief for United States 29, n. 19 (citing 28 CFR § 540.12(c) (2001) and BOP Program Statement 5800.10.35).

The Government, of course, should not be “penalized” for upgrading its policies. See ante, at 172. It would be improper to brand the BOP’s 1988 procedures deficient simply because those procedures have since been improved. Nevertheless, the new rules show that substantial improvements in reliability could have been had, in 1988 and years before, at minimal expense and inconvenience. Nor will it do to label these efforts a matter of executive grace. They undeniably provide a “feasible” means “substantially [more] likely to bring home notice” than FCI Milan’s prior uncertain mail-room to prison cell practice. See Mullane, 339 U. S., at 315.

The Government would assign to Dusenbery the burden of showing that the mail delivery system inside the prison was unreliable at the relevant time. Brief for United States 23-24. The Court shies away from explicit agreement, for that is not what Mullane instructs. Rather, the party obliged to give notice — here, the Government — must adopt a method “reasonably calculated” to reach the intended recipient. See 339 U. S., at 318; One Toshiba Color Television, 213 F. 3d, at 155 (If the Government “chooses to rely on less than actual notice, it bears the burden of demonstrating the existence of procedures that are reasonably calculated to ensure that [actual] notice will be given.”). The Government, staying “within the limits of practicability,” Mullane, 339 U. S., at 318, now conforms to the foundational precedent; its prior practice fell short of the requirement that “[t]he means employed must be such as one desirous of actually informing the absentee might reasonably adopt to accomplish it,” id., at 315.

The majority is surely correct that the Due Process Clause does not require “heroic efforts” to ensure actual notice. Ante, at 170. But the BOP’s recently installed proof of delivery procedures require no convoys of armored vehicles to “escor[t]” prisoners to the post office. Ibid. There is little danger that Hollywood will confuse the rescuers of Private Ryan, see ibid., with a BOP Unit Team member, putatively delivering certified mail to inmates in his charge at least since 1988, instructed a decade later to linger for the additional moments required to secure for each delivery a signature in a logbook. The Due Process Clause requires nothing of the Government in cases of this genre beyond the practicable, efficient, and inexpensive reform the BOP has already adopted.

Notice consistent with due process “will vary with circumstances and conditions.” Mennonite Bd., 462 U. S., at 802 (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (emphasis deleted) (internal quotation marks omitted). Given the circumstances and conditions of imprisonment, the Government must have cause to be confident that legal notices to prisoners will be delivered inside the prison with the care “one desirous of actually informing the [addressee] might reasonably adopt to accomplish it.” Mullane, 339 U. S., at 315. The uncertain mail-room to cell delivery system formerly in place at FCI Milan fell short of that mark. Greater reliability could be achieved with modest effort. Because the Court finds that small but significant effort undue, I dissent.

       Rule 41(e) provides that “[a] person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure or by the deprivation of property may move the district court for the district in which the property was seized for the return of the property on the ground that such person is entitled to lawful possession of the property.”

       In a letter received before argument, the Solicitor General advised us that the BOP now requires the retention of certified mail logbooks for 11 years in accordance with its implementation of Government record retention policies under the Federad Records Act of 1950, 44 U. S. C. §2901 et seq. (1994 ed.).

       See, e. g., Whiting v. United States, 231 F. 3d 70, 76 (CA1 2000) (due process satisfied by Government’s sending certified letter to inmate at his prison facility absent proof that mail delivery was unreliable); Yeung Mung Weng v. United States, 137 F. 3d 709, 715 (CA2 1998) (mailed notice to custodial institution inadequate unless in fact delivered to the intended recipient); United States v. One Toshiba Color Television, 213 F. 3d 147, 155 (CA3 2000) (en banc) (Government bears burden of demonstrating the existence of procedures that are reasonably calculated to ensure that actual notice will be given); United States v. Minor, 228 F. 3d 352, 358 (CA4 2000) (endorsing One Toshiba Color Television, supra); United States v. Woodall, 12 F. 3d 791, 794-795 (CA8 1993) (requiring actual notice to defendant or his counsel of agency’s intent to forfeit property); United States
        v. Real Property, 135 F. 3d 1312, 1315 (CA9 1998) (adequate to send summons by certified mail to jail with procedures for distributing mail directly to the inmate); United States v. Clark, 84 F. 3d 378, 381 (CA10 1996) (sufficient to send certified mail to prisoner at jail where he was located).

        E. g., Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306, 319 (1950) (noting that the mails “are recognized as an efficient and inexpensive means of communication”); Walker v. City of Hutchinson, 352 U. S. 112, 116 (1956); Schroeder v. City of New York, 371 U. S. 208, 214 (1962); Mennonite Bd. of Missions v. Adams, 462 U. S. 791, 798 (1983); Tulsa Professional Collection Services, Inc. v. Pope, 485 U. S. 478, 490 (1988).

       The Government’s brief notes that the term “actual notice” is not free from ambiguity as used by this Court in cases such as Tulsa, supra, and by other courts. Brief for United States 20, n. 12 (stating that the term has been used both to distinguish notice by mail from notice by publication and to refer to the actual receipt of the notice by the intended recipient); see also Black’s Law Dictionary 1087 (7th ed. 1999) (defining “actual notice” as “[n]otice given directly to, or received personally by, a party”). We think the best way to avoid this confusion is to equate, as petitioner does, “actual notice” with “receipt of notice.”

       To try to show that there is a “significant risk,” Brief for Petitioner 14, that notice mailed to a prison will not reach an inmate, petitioner has cited several cases from various Courts of Appeals involving postforfeiture challenges. As the Government argues, these cases, like petitioner’s own suit here, involve only claims that notice was not received, not findings of nonreceipt.

       In briefing this case, the Government questioned whether it is “permissible for courts to approach the due process issue here as a matter of what is 'fair’ or workable.” Brief for United States 31. Any doubt on that score should be dispelled. Mullane carefully explained that the due process requirement at stake is not merely permissive, it demands that both fairness and practicality be taken into account. See 339 U. S., at 313-320.

       The decree sought by the Mullane trustee would terminate “every right which beneficiaries would otherwise have against the trust company, either as trustee of the common fund or as trustee of any individual trust, for improper management of the common trust fund during the period covered by the accounting.” Id., at 311.

       The majority suggests that it is necessary to “explain” how “requiring the end recipient to sign for a piece of mail substantially improves the reliability of the delivery procedures leading up to that person’s receipt.” Ante, at 172. The signature procedure now in place offers the FBI the same security that motivates any other postal customer to pay a surcharge for certified mail, return receipt requested: A sender who knows whether delivery to the addressee was accomplished can try again if the first effort fails. Moreover, if forfeiture cannot be had absent a logbook signature or documentation that the addressee refused to sign, the BOP will have every incentive to make sure its internal procedures guarantee reliable delivery. The BOP’s incentive fades if all that is required is a general statement by a mailroom employee that it is prison policy to deliver inmate mail. See supra, at 174.

       The majority’s concern that a more demanding proof of notice requirement would undermine finality, ante, at 171, is baffling: Disputes over whether notice was sent or received would be diminished, not encouraged, by requiring proof of notice by signature. Under the regime the majority tolerates, notice may be delivered or not depending on the diligence or carelessness of the prison administration and the reliability or neglect of its Unit Teams. “The title to property should not depend on such vagaries.” Ibid.

       The majority worries that a firmer rule on delivery might “also apply, for example, to members of the Armed Forces both in this country and overseas.” Ante, at 170. Of course, many active-duty military personnel, both on and off military bases, maintain personal mailboxes and interact with local postal authorities as does any other resident. The majority is right that other members of the Armed Forces — soldiers in combat, for example — are in respects material to this case similarly situated to Dusenbery: Government authority determines their whereabouts and restricts their movements, and that same authority receives their mail at a central delivery location and must make arrangements to distribute it further. It is at least doubtful, however, that a soldier, oblivious to a pending action, would return home to find her property irrevocably forfeited to her Government because she had the misfortune to be in a combat zone too long.


source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Justice O’Connor

license: Public Domain

text:
    TOYOTA MOTOR MANUFACTURING, KENTUCKY, INC. v. WILLIAMS
    No. 00-1089.
    Argued November 7, 2001
    Decided January 8, 2002

      O’Connor, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

      John G. Roberts, Jr., argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Jeffrey A. Savarise, John A. West, and Katherine A. Hessenbruch.

      Barbara B. McDowell argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae in support of petitioner. On the brief were Solicitor General Olson, Acting Assistant Attorney General Schiffer, Deputy Solicitor General Clement, Malcolm L. Stewart, Marleigh D. Dover, and Charles W. Scarborough.

      Robert Leslie Rosenbaum argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American Trucking Associations, Inc., et al. by Evan M. Tager and Miriam R. Nemetz; for the Equal Employment Advisory Council et al. by Ann Elizabeth Reesman, Katherine Y. K. Cheung, Jan S. Amundson, and Quentin Riegel; and for Levi Strauss & Co. by John C. Burgin, Jr.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations by Jonathan P. Hiatt, Michael H. Gottesman, and Laurence Gold; for the Association of Trial Lawyers of America by Jeffrey Robert White; for the Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law et al. by John Townsend Rich; for the National Council on Disability by Arlene Mayerson and Nancy L. Perkins; and for the National Employment Lawyers Association by Noah D. Lebowitz and Paula A. Brantner.

   Justice O’Connor

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA or Act), 104 Stat. S28,42 U. S. C. § 12101 et seq. (1994 ed. and Supp. V), a physical impairment that “substantially limits one or more . . . major life activities” is a “disability.” 42 U. S. C. § 12102(2)(A) (1994 ed.). Respondent, claiming to be disabled because of her carpal tunnel syndrome and other related impairments, sued petitioner, her former employer, for failing to provide her with a reasonable accommodation as required by the ADA. See § 12112(b)(5)(A). The District Court granted summary judgment to petitioner, finding that respondent’s impairments did not substantially limit any of her major life activities. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed, finding that the impairments substantially limited respondent in the major life activity of performing manual tasks, and therefore granting partial summary judgment to respondent on the issue of whether she was disabled under the ADA. We conclude that the Court of Appeals did not apply the proper standard in making this determination because it analyzed only a limited class of manual tasks and failed to ask whether respondent’s impairments prevented or restricted her from performing tasks that are of central importance to most people’s daily lives.

HH

Respondent began working at petitioner’s automobile manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, in August 1990. She was soon placed on an engine fabrication assembly line, where her duties included work with pneumatic tools. Use of these tools eventually caused pain in respondent’s hands, wrists, and arms. She sought treatment at petitioner’s in-house medical service, where she was diagnosed with bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome and bilateral tendinitis. Respondent consulted a personal physician who placed her on permanent work restrictions that precluded her from lifting more than 20 pounds or from “frequently lifting or carrying... objects weighing up to 10 pounds,” engaging in “constant repetitive . . . flexion or extension of [her] wrists or elbows,” performing “overhead work,” or using “vibratory or pneumatic tools.” Brief for Respondent 2; App. 45-46.

In light of these restrictions, for the next two years petitioner assigned respondent to various modified duty jobs. Nonetheless, respondent missed some work for medical leave, and eventually filed a claim under the Kentucky Workers’ Compensation Act. Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. §342.0011 et seq. (1997 and Supp. 2000). The parties settled this claim, and respondent returned to work. She was unsatisfied by petitioner’s efforts to accommodate her work restrictions, however, and responded by bringing an action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky alleging that petitioner had violated the ADA by refusing to accommodate her disability. That suit was also settled, and as part of the settlement, respondent returned to work in December 1993.

Upon her return, petitioner placed respondent on a team in Quality Control Inspection Operations (QCIO). QCIO is responsible for four tasks: (1) “assembly paint”; (2) “paint second inspection”; (3) “shell body audit”; and (4) “ED surface repair.” App. 19. Respondent was initially placed on a team that performed only the first two of these tasks, and for a couple of years, she rotated on a weekly basis between them. In assembly paint, respondent visually inspected painted cars moving slowly down a conveyor. She scanned for scratches, dents, chips, or any other flaws that may have occurred during the assembly or painting process, at a rate of one car every 54 seconds. When respondent began working in assembly paint, inspection team members were required to open and shut the doors, trunk, and/or hood of each passing car. Sometime during respondent’s tenure, however, the position was modified to include only visual inspection with few or no manual tasks. Paint second inspection required team members to use their hands to wipe each painted car with a glove as it moved along a conveyor. Id., at 21-22. The parties agree that respondent was physically capable of performing both of these jobs and that her performance was satisfactory.

During the fall of 1996, petitioner announced that it wanted QCIO employees to be able to rotate through all four of the QCIO processes. Respondent therefore received training for the shell body audit job, in which team members apply a highlight oil to the hood, fender, doors, rear quarter panel, and trunk of passing cars at a rate of approximately one car per minute. The highlight oil has the viscosity of salad oil, and employees spread it on cars with a sponge attached to a block of wood. After they wipe each car with the oil, the employees visually inspect it for flaws. Wiping the cars required respondent to hold her hands and arms up around shoulder height for several hours at a time.

A short while after the shell body audit job was added to respondent’s rotations, she began to experience pain in her neck and shoulders. Respondent again sought care at petitioner’s in-house medical service, where she was diagnosed with myotendinitis bilateral periscapular, an inflammation of the muscles and tendons around both of her shoulder blades; myotendinitis and myositis bilateral forearms with nerve compression causing median nerve irritation; and thoracic outlet compression, a condition that causes pain in the nerves that lead to the upper extremities. Respondent requested that petitioner accommodate her medical conditions by allowing her to return to doing only her original two jobs in QCIO, which respondent claimed she could still perform without difficulty.

The parties disagree about what happened next. According to respondent, petitioner refused her request and forced her to continue working in the shell body audit job, which caused her even greater physical injury. According to petitioner, respondent simply began missing work on á regular basis. Regardless, it is clear that on December 6, 1996, the last day respondent worked at petitioner’s plant, she was placed under a no-work-of-any-kind restriction by her treating physicians. On January 27,1997, respondent received a letter from petitioner that terminated her employment, citing her poor attendance record.

Respondent filed a charge of disability discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). After receiving a right to sue letter, respondent filed suit against petitioner in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. Her complaint alleged that petitioner had violated the ADA and the Kentucky Civil Rights Act, Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. §344.010 et seq. (1997 and Supp. 2000), by failing to reasonably accommodate her disability and by terminating her employment. Respondent later amended her complaint to also allege a violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA), 107 Stat. 6, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §2601 et seq. (1994 ed. and Supp. V).

Respondent based her claim that she was “disabled” under the ADA on the ground that her physical impairments substantially limited her in (1) manual tasks; (2) housework; (3) gardening; (4) playing with her children; (5) lifting; and (6) working, all of which, she argued, constituted major life activities under the Act. Respondent also argued, in the alternative, that she was disabled under the ADA because she had a record of a substantially limiting impairment and because she was regarded as having such an impairment. See 42 U. S. C. §§ 12102(2)(BMC) (1994 ed.).

After petitioner filed a motion for summary judgment and respondent filed a motion for partial summary judgment on her disability claims, the District Court granted summary judgment to petitioner. Civ. A. No. 97-135 (Jan. 26, 1999), App. to Pet. for Cert. A-23. The court found that respondent had not been disabled, as defined by the ADA, at the time of petitioner’s alleged refusal to accommodate her, and that she had therefore not been covered by the Act’s protections or by the Kentucky Civil Rights Act, which is construed consistently with the ADA. Id., at A-29, A-34 to A-47. The District Court held that respondent had suffered from a physical impairment, but that the impairment did not qualify as a disability because it had not “substantially limited]” any “major life activity],” 42 U. S. C. § 12102(2)(A). App. to Pet. for Cert. A-34 to A-42. The court rejected respondent’s arguments that gardening, doing housework, and playing with children are major life activities. Id., at A-35 to A-36. Although the court agreed that performing manual tasks, lifting, and working are major life activities, it found the evidence insufficient to demonstrate that respondent had been substantially limited in lifting or working. Id., at A-36 to A-42. The court found respondent’s claim that she was substantially limited in performing manual tasks to be “irretrievably contradicted by [respondent’s] continual insistence that she could perform the tasks in assembly [paint] and paint [second] inspection without difficulty.” Id., at A-36. The court also found no evidence that respondent had had a record of a substantially limiting impairment, id., at A-43, or that petitioner had regarded her as having such an impairment, id., at A-46 to A-47.

The District Court also rejected respondent’s claim that her termination violated the ADA and the Kentucky Civil Rights Act. The court found that even if it assumed that respondent was disabled at the time of her termination, she was not a “qualified individual with a disability,” 42 U. S. C. § 12111(8) (1994 ed.), because, at that time, her physicians had restricted her from performing work of any kind, App. to Pet. for Cert. A-47 to A-50. Finally, the court found that respondent’s FMLA claim failed, because she had not presented evidence that she had suffered any damages available under the FMLA. Id., at A-50 to A-54.

Respondent appealed all but the gardening, housework, and playing-with-children rulings. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the District Court’s ruling on whether respondent was disabled at the time she sought an accommodation, but affirmed the District Court’s rulings on respondent’s FMLA and wrongful termination claims. 224 F. 3d 840 (2000). The Court of Appeals held that in order for respondent to demonstrate that she was disabled due to a substantial limitation in the ability to perform manual tasks at the time of her accommodation request, she had to “show that her manual disability involve[d] a 'class’ of manual activities affecting the ability to perform tasks at work.” Id., at 843. Respondent satisfied this test, according to the Court of Appeals, because her ailments “prevented] her from doing the tasks associated with certain types of manual assembly line jobs, manual product handling jobs and manual building trade jobs (painting, plumbing, roofing, etc.) that require the gripping of tools and repetitive work with hands and arms extended at or above shoulder levels for extended periods of time.” Ibid. In reaching this conclusion, the court disregarded evidence that respondent could “ten[d] to her personal hygiene [and] earr[y] out personal or household chores,” finding that such evidence “does not affect a determination that her impairment substantially limit[ed] her ability to perform the range of manual tasks associated with an assembly line job,” ibid. Because the Court of Appeals concluded that respondent had been substantially limited in performing manual tasks and, for that reason, was entitled to partial summary judgment on the issue of whether she was disabled under the Act, it found that it did not need to determine whether respondent had been substantially limited in the major life activities of lifting or working, ibid., or whether she had had a “record of” a disability or had been “regarded as” disabled, id., at 844.

We granted certiorari, 532 U. S. 970 (2001), to consider the proper standard for assessing whether an individual is substantially limited in performing manual tasks. We now reverse the Court of Appeals’ decision to grant partial summary judgment to respondent on the issue of whether she was substantially limited in performing manual tasks at the time she sought an accommodation. We express no opinion on the working, lifting, or other arguments for disability status that were preserved below but which were not ruled upon by the Court of Appeals.

I — Í I — l

The ADA requires covered entities, including private employers, to provide “reasonable accommodations to the known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified individual with a disability who is an applicant or employee, unless such covered entity can demonstrate that the accommodation would impose an undue hardship.” 42 U. S. C. § 12112(b)(5)(A) (1994 ed.); see also §12111(2) (“The term ‘covered entity’ means an employer, employment agency, labor organization, or joint labor-management committee”). The Act defines a “qualified individual with a disability” as “an individual with a disability who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of the employment position that such individual holds or desires.” § 12111(8). In turn, a “disability” is:

“(A) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of such individual;
“(B) a record of such an impairment; or
“(C) being regarded as having such an impairment.” §12102(2).

There are two potential sources of guidance for interpreting the terms of this definition — the regulations interpreting the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 87 Stat. 361, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 706(8)(B) (1988 ed.), and the EEOC regulations interpreting the ADA. Congress drew the ADA’s definition of disability almost verbatim from the definition of “handicapped individual” in the Rehabilitation Act, § 706(8)(B), and Congress’ repetition of a well-established term generally implies that Congress intended the term to be construed in accordance with pre-existing regulatory interpretations. Bragdon v. Abbott, 524 U. S. 624, 631 (1998); FDIC v. Philadelphia Gear Corp., 476 U. S. 426, 437-438 (1986); ICC v. Parker, 326 U. S. 60, 65 (1945). As we explained in Bragdon v. Abbott, supra, at 631, Congress did more in the ADA than suggest this construction; it adopted a specific statutory provision directing as follows:

“Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, nothing in this chapter shall be construed to apply a lesser standard than the standards applied under title V of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U. S. C. 790 et seq.) or the regulations issued by Federal agencies pursuant to such title.” 42 U. S. C. § 12201(a) (1994 ed.).

The persuasive authority of the EEOC regulations is less clear. As we have previously noted, see Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc., 527 U. S. 471, 479 (1999), no agency has been given authority to issue regulations interpreting the term “disability” in the ADA. Nonetheless, the EEOC has done so. See 29 CFR §§ 1630.2(gMj) (2001). Because both parties accept the EEOC regulations as reasonable, we assume without deciding that they are, and we have no occasion to decide what level of deference, if any, they are due. See Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc., supra, at 480; Albertson’s, Inc. v. Kirkingburg, 527 U. S. 555, 563, n. 10 (1999).

To qualify as disabled under subsection (A) of the ADA’s definition of disability, a claimant must initially prove that he or she has a physical or mental impairment. See 42 U. S. C. § 12102(2)(A). The Rehabilitation Act regulations issued by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) in 1977, which appear without change in the current regulations issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, define “physical impairment,” the type of impairment relevant to this case, to mean “any physiological disorder or condition, cosmetic disfigurement, or anatomical loss affecting one or more of the following body systems: neurological; musculoskeletal; special sense organs; respiratory, including speech organs; cardiovascular; reproductive, digestive, genito-urinary; hemic and lymphatic; skin; and endocrine.” 45 CFR § 84.3( j)(2)(i) (2001). The HEW regulations are of particular significance because at the time they were issued, HEW was the agency responsible for coordinating the implementation and enforcement of § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U. S. C. § 794 (1994 ed. and Supp. V), which prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities by recipients of federal financial assistance. Bragdon v. Abbott, supra, at 632 (citing Consolidated Rail Corporation v. Darrone, 465 U. S. 624, 634 (1984)).

Merely having an impairment does not make one disabled for purposes of the ADA. Claimants also need to demonstrate that the impairment limits a major life activity. See 42 U.S.C. § 12102(2)(A) (1994 ed.). The HEW Rehabilitation Act regulations provide a list of examples of “major life activities” that includes “walking, seeing, hearing,” and, as relevant here, “performing manual tasks.” 45 CFR §84.8(j)(2)(ii) (2001).

To qualify as disabled, a claimant must further show that the limitation on the major life activity is “substantia[l].” 42 U. S. C. § 12102(2)(A). Unlike “physical impairment” and “major life activities,” the HEW regulations do not define the term “substantially limits.” See Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Handicap in Programs and Activities Receiving or Benefiting from Federal Financial Assistance, 42 Fed. Reg. 22676, 22685 (1977) (stating HEW’s position that a definition of “substantially limits” was not possible at that time). The EEOC, therefore, has created its own definition for purposes of the ADA. According to the EEOC regulations, “substantially limit[ed]” means “[u]nable to. perform a major life activity that the average person in the general population can perform”; or “[significantly restricted as to the condition, manner or duration under which an individual can perform a particular major life activity as compared to the condition, manner, or duration under which the average person in the general population can perform that same major life activity.” 29 CFR § 1630.2(j) (2001). In determining whether an individual is substantially limited in a major life activity, the regulations instruct that the following factors should be considered: “[t]he nature and severity of the impairment; [t]he duration or expected duration of the impairment; and [t]he permanent or long-term impact, or the expected permanent or long-term impact of or resulting from the impairment.” §§ 1630.2(j)(2)(i)-(iii).

III

The question presented by this case is whether the Sixth Circuit properly determined that respondent was disabled under subsection (A) of the ADA’s disability definition at the time that she sought an accommodation from petitioner. 42 U. S. C. § 12102(2)(A). The parties do not dispute that respondent’s medical conditions, which include carpal tunnel syndrome, myotendinitis, and thoracic outlet compression, amount to physical impairments. The relevant question, therefore, is whether the Sixth Circuit correctly analyzed whether these impairments substantially limited respondent in the major life activity of performing manual tasks. Answering this requires us to address an issue about which the EEOC regulations are silent: what a plaintiff must demonstrate to establish a substantial limitation in the specific major life activity of performing manual tasks.

Our consideration of this issue is guided first and foremost by the words of the disability definition itself. “[Substantially” in the phrase “substantially limits” suggests “considerable” or “to a large degree.” See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 2280 (1976) (defining “substantially” as “in a substantial manner” and “substantial” as “considerable in amount, value, or worth” and “being that specified to a large degree or in the main”); see also 17 Oxford English Dictionary 66-67 (2d ed. 1989) (“substantial”: “[Relating to or proceeding from the essence of a thing; essential”; “[o]f ample or considerable amount, quantity, or dimensions”). The word “substantial” thus clearly precludes impairments that interfere in only a minor way with the performance of manual tasks from qualifying as disabilities. Cf. Albertson’s, Inc. v. Kirkingburg, 527 U. S., at 565 (explaining that a “mere difference” does not amount to a “significant restriction]” and therefore does not satisfy the EEOC’s interpretation of “substantially limits”).

“Major” in the phrase “major life activities” means important. See Webster’s, supra, at 1363 (defining “major” as “greater in dignity, rank, importance, or interest”). “Major life activities” thus refers to those activities that are of central importance to daily life. In order for performing manual tasks to fit into this category — a category that includes such basic abilities as walking, seeing, and hearing — the manual tasks in question must be central to daily life. If each of the tasks included in the major life activity of performing manual tasks does not independently qualify as a major life activity, then together they must do so.

That these terms need to be interpreted strictly to create a demanding standard for qualifying as disabled is confirmed by the first section of the ADA, which lays out the legislative findings and purposes that motivate the Act. See 42 U. S. C. § 12101. When it enacted the ADA in 1990, Congress found that “some 43,000,000 Americans have one or more physical or mental disabilities.” § 12101(a)(1). If Congress intended everyone with a physical impairment that precluded the performance of some isolated, unimportant, or particularly difficult manual task to qualify as disabled, the number of disabled Americans would surely have been much higher. Cf. Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc., 527 U. S., at 487 (finding that because more than 100 million people need corrective lenses to see properly, “[h]ad Congress intended to include all persons with corrected physical limitations among those covered by the Act, it undoubtedly would have cited a much higher number [than 43 million] disabled persons in the findings”).

We therefore hold that to be substantially limited in performing manual tasks, an individual must have an impairment that prevents or severely restricts the individual from doing activities that are of central importance to most people’s daily lives. The impairment’s impact must also be permanent or long term. See 29 CFR §§ 1630.2(j)(2)(ii)-(iii) (2001).

It is insufficient for individuals attempting to prove disability status under this test to merely submit evidence of a medical diagnosis of an impairment. Instead, the ADA requires those “claiming the Act’s protection ... to prove a disability by offering evidence that the extent of the limitation [caused by their impairment] in terms of their own experience ... is substantial.” Albertson’s, Inc. v. Kirkingburg, supra, at 567 (holding that monocular vision is not invariably a disability, but must be analyzed on an individual basis, taking into account the individual’s ability to compensate for the impairment). That the Act defines “disability” “with respect to an individual,” 42 U. S. C. § 12102(2), makes clear that Congress intended the existence of a disability to be determined in such a case-by-case manner. See Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc., supra, at 483; Albertson’s, Inc. v. Kirkingburg, supra, at 566; cf. Bragdon v. Abbott, 524 U. S., at 641-642 (relying on unchallenged testimony that the respondent’s HIV infection controlled her decision not to have a child, and declining to consider whether HIV infection is a per se disability under the ADA); 29 CFR pt. 1630, App. § 1630.2(j) (2001) (“The determination of whether an individual has a disability is not necessarily based on the name or diagnosis of the impairment the person has, but rather on the effect of that impairment on the life of the individual”); ibid. (“The determination of whether an individual is substantially limited in a major life activity must be made on a case-by-case basis”).

An individualized assessment of the effect of an impairment is particularly necessary when the impairment is one whose symptoms vary widely from person to person. Carpal tunnel syndrome, one of respondent’s impairments, is just such a condition. While cases of severe carpal tunnel syndrome are characterized by muscle atrophy and extreme sensory deficits, mild cases generally do not have either of these effects and create only intermittent symptoms of numbness and tingling. Carniero, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: The Cause Dictates the Treatment, 66 Cleveland Clinic J. Medicine 169, 161-162 (1999). Studies have further shown that, even without surgical treatment, one quarter of carpal tunnel cases resolve in one month, but that in 22 percent of cases, symptoms last for eight years or longer. See DeSte-fano, Nordstrom, & Uierkant, Long-term Symptom Outcomes of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and its Treatment, 22A J. Hand Surgery 200, 204-205 (1997). When pregnancy is the cause of carpal tunnel syndrome, in contrast, the symptoms normally resolve within two weeks of delivery. See Ouel-lette, Nerve Compression Syndromes of the Upper Extremity in Women, 17 J. of Musculoskeletal Medicine 536 (2000). Given these large potential differences in the severity and duration of the effects of carpal tunnel syndrome, an individual’s carpal tunnel syndrome diagnosis, on its own, does not indicate whether the individual has-a disability within the meaning of the ADA.

IV

The Court of Appeals’ analysis of respondent’s claimed disability suggested that in order to prove a substantial limitation in the major life activity of performing manual tasks, a “plaintiff must show that her manual disability involves a ‘class’ of manual activities,” and that those activities “affec[t] the ability to perform tasks at work.” See 224 F. 3d, at 843. Both of these ideas lack support.

The Court of Appeals relied on our opinion in Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc., for the idea that a “class” of manual activities must be implicated for an impairment to substantially limit the major life activity of performing manual tasks. 224 F. 3d, at 843. But Sutton said only that “[w]hen the major life activity under consideration is that of working, the statutory phrase ‘substantially limits’ requires . . . that plaintiffs allege they are unable to work in a broad class of jobs.” 527 U. S., at 491 (emphasis added). Because of the conceptual difficulties inherent in the argument that working could be a major life activity, we have been hesitant to hold as much, and we need not decide this difficult question today. In Sutton, we noted that even assuming that working is a major life activity, a claimant would be required to show an inability to work in a “broad range of jobs,” rather than a specific job. Id., at 492. But Sutton did not suggest that a class-based analysis should be applied to any major life activity other than working. Nor do the EEOC regulations. In defining “substantially limits,” the EEOC regulations only mention the “class” concept in the context of the major life activity of working. 29 CFR § 1630.2(j)(3) (2001) (“With respect to the major life activity of working[,] [t]he term substantially limits means significantly restricted in the ability to perform either a class of jobs or a broad range of jobs in various classes as compared to the average person having comparable training, skills and abilities”). Nothing in the text of the Act, our previous opinions, or the regulations suggests that a class-based framework should apply outside the context of the major life activity of working.

While the Court of Appeals in this case addressed the different major life activity of performing manual tasks, its analysis circumvented Sutton by focusing on respondent’s inability to perform manual tasks associated only with her job. This was error. When addressing the major life activity of performing manual tasks, the central inquiry must be whether the claimant is unable to perform the variety of tasks central to most people’s daily lives, not whether the claimant is unable to perform the tasks associated with her specific job. Otherwise, Sutton’s restriction on claims of disability based on a substantial limitation in working will be rendered meaningless because an inability to perform a specific job always can be recast as an inability to perform a “class” of tasks associated with that specific job.

There is also no support in the Act, our previous opinions, or the regulations for the Court of Appeals’ idea that the question of whether an impairment constitutes a disability is to be answered only by analyzing the effect of the impairment in the workplace Indeed, the fact that the Act’s definition of “disability” applies not only to Title I of the Act, 42 U. S. C. §§ 12111-12117 (1994 ed.), which deals with employment, but also to the other portions of the Act, which deal with subjects such as public transportation, §§ 12141-12150, 42 U. S. C. §§ 12161-12165 (1994 ed. and Supp. V), and privately provided public accommodations, §§12181-12189, demonstrates that the definition is intended to cover individuals with disabling impairments regardless of whether the individuals have any connection to a workplace.

Even more critically, the manual tasks unique to any particular job are not necessarily important parts of most people’s lives. As a result, occupation-specific tasks may have only limited relevance to the manual task inquiry. In this case, “repetitive work with hands and arms extended at or above shoulder levels for extended periods of time,” 224 F. 3d, at 843, the manual task on which the Court of Appeals relied, is not an important part of most people’s daily lives. The court, therefore, should not have considered respondent’s inability to do such manual work in her specialized assembly line job as sufficient proof that she was substantially limited in performing manual tasks.

At the same time, the Court of Appeals appears to have disregarded the very type of evidence that it should have focused upon. It treated as irrelevant “[t]he fact that [respondent] can ... ten[d] to her personal hygiene [and] carr[y] out personal or household chores.” Ibid. Yet household chores, bathing, and brushing one’s teeth are among the types of manual tasks of central importance to people’s daily lives, and should have been part of the assessment of whether respondent was substantially limited in performing manual tasks.

The District Court noted that at the time respondent sought an accommodation from petitioner, she admitted that she was able to do the manual tasks required by her original two jobs in QCIO. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-36. In addition, according to respondent’s deposition testimony, even after her condition worsened, she could still brush her teeth, wash her face, bathe, tend her flower garden, fix breakfast, do laundry, and pick up around the house. App. 32-34. The record also indicates that her medical conditions caused her to avoid sweeping, to quit dancing, to occasionally seek help dressing, and to reduce how often she plays with her children, gardens, and drives long distances. Id., at 32, 38-39. But these changes in her life did not amount to such severe restrictions in the activities that are of central importance to most people’s daily lives that they establish a manual task disability as a matter of law. On this record, it was therefore inappropriate for the Court of Appeals to grant partial summary judgment to respondent on the issue of whether she was substantially limited in performing manual tasks, and its decision to do so must be reversed.

In its brief on the merits, petitioner asks us to reinstate the District Court’s grant of summary judgment to petitioner on the manual task issue. In its petition for certio-rari, however, petitioner did not seek summary judgment; it argued only that the Court of Appeals’ reasons for granting partial summary judgment to respondent were unsound. This Court’s Rule 14.1(a) provides: “Only the questions set out in the petition, or fairly included therein, will be considered by the Court.” The question of whether petitioner was entitled to summary judgment on the manual task issue is therefore not properly before us. See Irvine v. California, 347 U. S. 128, 129-130 (1954).

Accordingly, we reverse the Court of Appeals’ judgment granting partial summary judgment to respondent and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

So ordered.