Cite as: 540 U. S. 736 (2004)
Opinion of the Court
Id., at 554-555. The Court also relied, however, upon the provisions of Title VII itself which, by specific amendment, extended the coverage under the Civil Rights Act to federal employees. Id., at 558-561.
After Loeffler, this Court decided FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U. S. 471, 484 (1994). In Meyer, the question was whether the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC), an agency of the United States, could be held liable in a so-called "Bivens action." See Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971). A federal statute provided for a waiver of sovereign immunity in suits against the FSLIC, but the Court explained that the interpretation of the waiver statute was just the initial part of a two-part inquiry. Even though sovereign immunity had been waived, there was the further, separate question whether the agency was subject to the substantive liability recognized in Bivens. Meyer, supra, at 483. The Loeffler Court had not set forth the two-step analysis in the explicit terms Meyer used, but it did, as we have said, consult the statute as the source of the liability upon which the obligation to pay prejudgment interest depended.
The two-step analysis in Meyer applies here. We ask first whether there is a waiver of sovereign immunity for actions against the Postal Service. If there is, we ask the second question, which is whether the substantive prohibitions of the Sherman Act apply to an independent establishment of the Executive Branch of the United States.
When the Court of Appeals considered the instant case, it cited Meyer and seemed at the outset to follow Meyer's two-step analysis. In our view, however, the ensuing discussion in the Court of Appeals' opinion was not consistent with the Meyer framework; for, having found that the Postal Service's immunity from suit is waived to the extent provided by the statutory sue-and-be-sued clause, the Court of Appeals relied on the same waiver to conclude that the Sherman
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