Gamefly's legal struggles with the United States Postal Service are getting heated as the company seeks to prove preferential treatment for competing services, reports GamePolitics (via Hacking Netflix). The legal complaint, filed in April, accused the USPS of giving preferential manual sorting to Netflix and Blockbuster, which Gamefly contends could help prevent costly broken discs. The company claimed about 1% of discs are broken in transit, but the post office contends that their sorting is done like any other company, and Gamefly's packaging is to blame.

As part of the complaint, Gamefly requested information in July regarding how many postal service locations have "Netflix-only" mail slots. The post office claimed such slots would be "against current Headquarters policy" and said it had no data on that. However, Gamefly obtained pictures of post offices in Susanville and Alturas, California, plainly showing a slot that says "Netflix-only." In an interesting wrinkle, however, the postal service issued a directive two years ago to remove all Netflix-only slots, warning that it could have "legal ramifications." The USPS hasn't verified the authenticity of the photos, so there's no telling if they were taken before or after that directive was issued. But for Gamefly's part, snapping pictures and then waiting two years to use them in court would be an odd move. Alternately, those two locations could have simply not followed the directive, which is sure to put those offices in hot water given the legal trouble at USPS headquarters.