Antonio Roig, Sucrs. S. En C. v. The United States

420 F.2d 750, 56 C.C.P.A. 72
CourtCourt of Customs and Patent Appeals
DecidedApril 3, 1969
DocketCustoms Appeal 5307
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 420 F.2d 750 (Antonio Roig, Sucrs. S. En C. v. The United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Customs and Patent Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Antonio Roig, Sucrs. S. En C. v. The United States, 420 F.2d 750, 56 C.C.P.A. 72 (ccpa 1969).

Opinions

RICH, Judge.

The instant importation was invoiced as a “Henderson 10 ton fixed electric tower crane with one spreader bar,” and classified as an article having as an essential feature an electrical element or device under par. 353 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as modified by the Torquay Protocol to GATT, T.D. 52739, which reads:

Articles having as an essential feature an electrical element or device, such as electric motors, fans, locomotives, portable tools, furnaces, heaters, ovens, ranges, washing machines, refrigerators, and signs, finished or unfinished, wholly or in chief value of metal, and not specially provided for:

'X* *X* -X* *X- # -X-

Other (* * *)......13%% ad val.

The importer contends the crane is entitled to free entry under par. 1604, Tariff Act of 1930, which reads:

Agricultural implements: Plows, tooth or disk harrows, headers, harvesters, reapers, agricultural drills and planters, mowers, horserakes, cultivators, thrashing machines, cotton gins, machinery for icse in the manufacture of sugar, wagons and carts, cream separators valued at not more than $50 each, and all other agricultural im[751]*751plements of any kind or description, not specially provided for, whether in whole or in parts, including repair parts: Provided, That no article specified by name in Title I shall be free of duty under this paragraph. [Our emphasis.]

Appellant’s proofs consisted of the testimony of one witness and 5 exhibits consisting of a catalog of the crane manufacturer, two photographs of the crane in operation, a plan of its pile-supported foundation, and the “Gilmore Louisiana-Florida Sugar Manual,” published 1963. The witness, Supervising Engineer with the Roig enterprises for 29 years, described the crane, which he was instrumental in ordering, as follows:

It consists of a central tower. It is about 60 feet high, maybe 10 feet square, and on top of the tower horizontal [ly] is mounted a boom, which is 100 feet long toward the front part of the crane, and maybe 20 feet toward the back side of the crane, which is counterbalanced to offset the weight which might go on the other end. ******

The crane weighs complete, as assembled now, 65 tons. The foundation extends 65 feet under ground. It consists of 16 concrete piles driven 65 feet into the ground at an angle.

As to the crane’s function, the witness testified that:

In a sugar mill they work 24 hours a day. Unfortunately in very few cases you can bring cane from the field at night, and therefore during the day you have to store sugar cane to work at night. The only way you can do that is by stockpiling, and we do that by dumping the sugar cane on the ground, and placing it with the crane — the crane is provided with a set of grabs, and in our case, places the cane under the crane. During the night we take from the stockpile and place it on the conveyor so we can grind it.

The importer relies here, as below, on two alternative aspects of par. 1604, viz., “Agricultural implements,” and “machinery for use in the manufacture of sugar,” emphasis being placed on the latter.

In dealing with the first proposition the Customs Court stated, correctly we think:

The uncontradicted evidence herein establishes that sugarcane is produced in two states on the mainland of the United States, Florida and Louisiana, and in the State of Hawaii as well as in the commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The record establishes to our satisfaction that the chief use of cranes of the class or kind in question is generally by sugarcane mills.

While the court may take judicial notice of the fact that the production of sugarcane is an agricultural pursuit, it is not clear that the imported crane falls within the purview of the provision for agricultural implements. The term “agricultural implements” was defined in the case of United States v. Boker & Co., 6 Ct.Cust.Appls. 243, T.D. 35472, which involved a predecessor provision contained in the Tariff Act of 1913. The court therein, after reviewing a number of dictionary definitions, concluded that the term “agricultural implements” embraced articles “such as pertain to human and incidental animal subsistence —the substantial requirements of life (food) and possibly man’s comfort (raiment).” This definition was further amplified in United States v. Tower, 6 Ct.Cust.Appls. 562, T.D. 36199, wherein the court held that an agricultural implement serves some purpose in the production of food from the soil or in the raising of domestic animals. The imported crane does not fall within either definition as set forth, supra, inasmuch as the function of the imported merchandise is to handle the sugarcane after it is grown, cut, and transported to the sugar factory. The use is not by the farmer or [752]*752on the farm but by the sugar processor at the sugar factory.

While cranes used on farms for the loading of sugarcane into carts and sugarcane slings used for the loading of cane on a farm have been held to be agricultural implements, the involved cranes do not fall within the same category since they are not used by the farmer on the farm for agricultural purposes. See In the Matter of Jose Romaguera, 39 Treas. Dec. 25, T.D. 38592; United States v. Compania Azucarera Del Camuy, Inc., supra.

With respect to the contention that the crane is machinery for use in the manufacture of sugar, we have examined the various decisions of the Customs Court and this court cited by respective counsel but find none to be precisely in point or controlling here. The Customs Court and both parties to this appeal rely primarily on the latest expression of this court on the application of “machinery used in the manufacture of sugar,” in paragraph 1604, in James A/C The Consolidated Packaging Corp. v. United States, 48 CCPA 75, C.A.D. 768. There the importation denied free entry under that paragraph was a machine for weighing and packaging, in two-pound bags, sugar which had already been completely manufactured. We there said:

The Customs Court found no dispute that the involved machine was designed for and is specifically used for the packaging of sugar. The court then held that packaging does not constitute manufacture and that “the type of machinery contemplated by Congress to be within the purview of paragraph 1604, supra, was to include only those machines used in the manufacture of sugar per se.” In support of this holding, the court quoted as follows:

Summary of Tariff Information, 1929, on Tariff Act of 1922, Volume 2, Schedule 15, Free List, page 2174:

DESCRIPTION AND USES.— Sugar-mill machinery includes rolls for crushing cane and extracting the juice, filter presses, tanks, coils, and evaporators, and centrifugal machines for separating the molasses from sugar. In beet-sugar manufacture the crushers used in cane-sugar production are replaced by washers, slicers, and tanks for extracting the sugar with hot water.

•X- * *X* * v»* -X-

Here the congressional intent in the use of the words “machinery for use in the manufacture of sugar” must be resolved. The only word in this phrase which seems to cause some difficulty is the word “manufacture.” “Manufacture,” according to Funk & Wag-nalls New Standard Dictionary (1938), is defined as follows:

manufacture, n. 1.

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Antonio Roig, Sucrs. S. En C. v. The United States
420 F.2d 750 (Customs and Patent Appeals, 1969)

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