United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ____________ United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit

No. 24-30609 FILED March 21, 2025 ____________ Lyle W. Cayce Perry Spriggs, Clerk

Plaintiff—Appellant,

versus United States of America,

Defendant—Appellee. ______________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana USDC No. 2:24-CV-741 ______________________________ Before Dennis, Haynes, and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges. James L. Dennis, Circuit Judge: A facsimile confirmation sheet stating successful transmission to the correct recipient is probative evidence that the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA)’s presentment requirement has been satisfied. Because the district court disregarded the fax confirmation evidence, we VACATE the district court’s judgment and REMAND for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. Case: 24-30609 Document: 41-1 Page: 2 Date Filed: 03/21/2025

No. 24-30609

I A U.S. Postal Service vehicle struck Plaintiff-Appellant Perry Spriggs while he rode his bicycle on Calliope Street in New Orleans on March 23, 2022. On March 23, 2023, Spriggs faxed to the Postal Service his medical records and a signed Standard Form 95 (SF-95), which is a standardized form used to present claims against the United States under the FTCA for property damage, personal injury, or death allegedly caused by a federal employee’s negligence. Spriggs addressed his fax to the attention of Tara D. Lennix, a Louisiana District Tort Claims/Collections Specialist for the Postal Service, and sent it to (504) 589-1716, the correct fax number. Spriggs received a fax confirmation stating “[s]uccessful transmission to 15045891716” and “[y]our fax was successfully sent.” A year later, on March 22, 2024, Spriggs filed a lawsuit against the United States alleging personal injury and property damage resulting from the Calliope accident. The United States filed a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss, arguing that the Postal Service never received Spriggs’s SF-95 or any other “written notice of the claim sufficient to enable investigation, and [] value of the claim” as required by the FTCA. The United States attached to its motion two declarations: one from Kimberly Herbst and another from Tara Lennix. Herbst, a manager of the Postal Service’s Tort Program, declared that she had “conducted a search of all Postal Service Law Department records of administrative tort claims submitted . . . by . . . Perry Spriggs” and located nothing. Lennix, the Postal Service employee to whom Spriggs addressed his fax, declared that she shares her “fax machine with five or six other [Postal Service] employees” and “did not receive any fax related to Perry Spriggs.” The district court granted the United States’s Rule 12(b)(1) motion for lack of “affirmative evidence” of receipt and opted to dismiss Spriggs’s claims with prejudice

2 Case: 24-30609 Document: 41-1 Page: 3 Date Filed: 03/21/2025

No. 24-30609

pursuant to “Rule 12(b)(6) since the two-year statute of limitations for presentm