Aris Isotoner Gloves, Inc. v. United States

14 Ct. Int'l Trade 693
CourtUnited States Court of International Trade
DecidedOctober 10, 1990
DocketCourt No. 83-06-00866
StatusPublished

This text of 14 Ct. Int'l Trade 693 (Aris Isotoner Gloves, Inc. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of International Trade primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Aris Isotoner Gloves, Inc. v. United States, 14 Ct. Int'l Trade 693 (cit 1990).

Opinion

Aquilino, Judge:

This case, which challenges the value of imported dress gloves computed pursuant to section 201 of the Trade Agreements Act of 1979, 19 U.S.C. § 1401a, is described in the court’s Slip Op. 88-154,12 CIT 1064, (Nov. 7,1988), familiarity with which is presumed.

Before the court at the time were cross-motions for summary judgment, which could not be resolved on the papers submitted in light of the decisionin Texas Apparel Co. v. United States, 12 CIT 1002, 698 F.Supp. 932 (1988), which was handed down after their filing herein. Hence, this court directed the parties to determine if they could resolve themselves the issues of fact, to which that decision had given rise, before any further, formal proceedings.

Subsequent to Slip Op. 88-154, however, the plaintiff first appeared as amicus curiae in support of the Texas Apparel Co.’s appeal to the U.S. [694]*694Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit from the CIT judgment of dismissal. The court of appeals affirmed that judgment, 883 F.2d 66 (1989), whereupon counsel presented a joint petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court which has been denied, 110 S.Ct. 728 (1990).

I

Part of plaintiffs motion for summary judgment is a Schedule A, which lists categories encaptioned knitting machines, sewing machines, presses (without dies or drills), knives and cutters, other machines, major machine components, and dies and tools. The parties have now filed a stipulation which states that the following items on that schedule,

which were furnished free of charge by the plaintiff importer to the foreign manufacturer of the subject imported merchandise, the book values of which were included in the appraised values of said merchandise, are not in the nature of assists within the meaning of 19 U.S.C. section 1402(h)(1)(a) [sic], and are not otherwise dutiable, to wit:
Description Value
Fans . $1,000.00
Time clocks. 103.75
Wall clocks . 348.60
Vacuum cleaners . 830.00
Knife sharpener. 155.58
Large drill press for making machine tools . 1,513.03
Small drill press for making machine tools . 302.61
Total. $4,253.57

The effect of this agreement, of course, is that the plaintiff is entitled to judgment providing for refund of any duties paid, based on the value of those articles.

II

Notwithstanding Texas Apparel, the plaintiff continues to move for summary judgment as a matter of law as to the remainder of its Schedule A. It has submitted a supplemental memorandum which concludes (at pages 25-27) as follows:

* * * [T]he court is not bound by the Federal Circuit’s affirmance of Texas Apparel Co. since the appellate court misapprehended the extent to which the lower court had considered the dispositive issues. Moreover, the * * * lower court’s opinion was flawed in several respects and thereby is not stare decisis on the issues in this case.
The Texas Apparel Co. court improperly deferred to Customs’ interpretation of terms in the appraisement title of the Tariff Act * * * * [A] court should not defer to agency interpretations of revenue statutes since the judicial deference doctrine applies only to regulatory statutes. Although principled well reasoned Customs rulings might be persuasive, although not binding, the rulings which express Customs’ position in this case were conclusory and lacking in reasoned analysis . * * *
Even if Chevron and it[s] progeny were applicable, the conditions warranting deference are not present in this case. By their terms, [695]*695those decisions require a court to apply a two pronged test before deferringto agency interpretation. First, the court should ascertain congressional intent by applying traditional tools of statutory construction. If that intent can be gleaned from extrinsic aids, legislative history, or intrinsic aids, e.g., ejusdem generis and noscitur a sociis, the issue is concluded. If not, and the statute is silent or ambiguous, a court should defer to interstitial gap-filling, * * * effected by the agency through interpretation case-by-case. At that point, the court is responsible to determine whether the interpretation is reasonable. The court in Texas Apparel Co. [] should have acknowledged that the legislative history was silent on the precise issue, but then should have ascertained congressional intent by “employing traditional tools of statutory construction, ” that is, ejusdem generis and noscitur a sociis. If so, the court would have complied with the Cardoza-Fonseca formulation and found no occasion to defer. In other words, the court would never have had to determine whether Customs’ interpretation was reasonable.
In the end, Customs’ interpretation was unreasonable because it was not based on extrinsic evidence of congressional intent, the application of traditional rules of statutory construction, or on any other principle which might have had persuasive authority. There was no basis whatsoever for applying the broadest possible interpretation to the term “tools” in section 402(h)(l)(A)(ii). Under recognized rules of statutory construction, the term should be limited, and construed in harmony with dies and molds. For this reason too the Texas Apparel Co. analysis was flawed and should be rejected.

On its part, the defendant has interposed a motion to strike this memorandum, arguing, among other things, that these points “have been extensively briefed to date, and plaintiff was simply out of time when it filed its memorandum of July 20,1990.” In response, the plaintiff admits to a “misunderstanding” as to the time for submissions subsequent to a status conference with the court. Be that as it may, there is no showing that the defendant has been prejudiced by plaintiffs timing, and the motion to strike therefore should be denied. See generally Jimlar Corp. v. United States, 10 CIT 671, 647 F.Supp. 932 (1986); Nuove Industrie Elettriche di Legnano S.p.A. v. United States, 14 CIT 334, 337-39, 739 F.Supp. 1567, 1570-72 (1990).

Of course, this denial of defendant’s procedural motion does not necessarily mean that its position on the merits, as set forth in its cross-motion for summary judgment, is without substance. This court was not privy to the proceedings in Texas Apparel, but plaintiffs counsel herein apparently were, at least at the appellate level, and it seems quite unlikely that the arguments quoted at length above have not already been pressed in the higher courts. Indeed, the issues raised in the certiorari petition were reported as follows:

* * * (1) Does judicial deference doctrine restated in Chevron U.S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council Inc.,

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Related

Texas Apparel Co. v. The United States
883 F.2d 66 (Federal Circuit, 1989)
Nuove Industrie Elettriche Di Legnano S.P.A. v. United States
739 F. Supp. 1567 (Court of International Trade, 1990)
Texas Apparel Co. v. United States
698 F. Supp. 932 (Court of International Trade, 1988)
Jimlar Corp. v. United States
647 F. Supp. 932 (Court of International Trade, 1986)

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Bluebook (online)
14 Ct. Int'l Trade 693, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/aris-isotoner-gloves-inc-v-united-states-cit-1990.