Brooks Paper Co. v. United States

40 C.C.P.A. 38, 1952 CCPA LEXIS 96
CourtCourt of Customs and Patent Appeals
DecidedJune 30, 1952
DocketNo. 4686
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 40 C.C.P.A. 38 (Brooks Paper Co. v. 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
Brooks Paper Co. v. United States, 40 C.C.P.A. 38, 1952 CCPA LEXIS 96 (ccpa 1952).

Opinion

JOHNSON, Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal from the judgment of the United States Customs Court, Third Division (Reap. Dec. 7975) reversing the judgment of the single judge (Reap. Dec. 7739).

Appellant, the importer, appealed for reappraisement seeking to establish a certain foreign or export value, as defined in section 402 (c) and (d) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as the proper basis for determining the dutiable value of the merchandise here involved. Section 402 provides in part as follows:

SEC. 402. VALUE.
(a) BASIS. — For the purposes of this Act the value of imported merchandise shall be—
(1) The foreign value or the export value, whichever is higher;
(c) FOREIGN VALUE. — The foreign value of imported merchandise shall be the market value or the price at the time of exportation of such merchandise to the United States, at which such or similar merchandise is freely offered for sale to all purchasers in the principal markets of the country from which exported, in the usual wholesale quantities and in the ordinary course of trade, * * *.
(d) EXPORT VALUE. — The export value of imported merchandise shall be the market value or the price, at the time of exportation of such merchandise to the United States, at which such or similar merchandise is freely offered for sale to all purchasers in the principal markets of the country from which exported, in the usual wholesale quantities and in the ordinary course of trade, for exportation to the United States, * * *.

[41]*41The merchandise is known as matrix board which was exported from Germany on October 7, 1936, and entered at the port of New York on October 16, 1936. The board was in sheets 24 inches long, 0.80 mm. thick, in widths of 20 and 16 inches. It was valued on the consular invoice at 60 pfennig per square meter and entered pursuant to the provisions of section 503 (b) of the Tariff Act of 1930, 19 U. S. C. § 1503 (b), at 80 pfennig per square meter less 3 per centum, packed.

The difference between the value set out in the consular invoice and the entered value is the amount added by the importer by reason of advances made by the appraiser in previous entries of similar merchandise, a duress certificate having been duly filed.

It is claimed by appellant that the correct value of the merchandise, representing both foreign and export values as statutorily defined, is 60 pfennig per square meter, net packed.

By statutory provision 1 Congress has directed that (1) the value found by the appraiser shall be presumed to be the value of the merchandise and (2) the burden shall rest upon the party who challenges its correctness to prove otherwise.

To sustain his burden of proof, and overcome this statutory presumption, it is incumbent upon appellant, the party challenging the value found by the appraiser in the first instance, to prove the action of the appraiser was erroneous and to establish some other dutiable value as the proper one. To do this, that party must meet every material issue involved in the case, and if he fails to do so the value fixed by the appraiser remains in full force and effect. United States v. Gane and Ingram, Inc., 24 C. C. P. A. (Customs) 1, T. D. 48264, citing United States v. T. D. Downing Co. (George H. Sweetnam, Inc.), 20 C. C. P. A. (Customs) 251, T. D. 46057. It is clear, from a reading of section 402 (c) and (d), supra, that in order to prove foreign value or export value as a basis for a valid reappraisement, the appellant must establish, inter alia, the usual wholesale quantities in which such or similar merchandise involved was freely offered for sale to all purchasers in the principal markets of the country from which exported, etc. This court has so construed the statute in the case of M. V. Jenkins et al. v. United States, 34 C. C. P. A. (Customs) 33, C. A. D. 341, wherein we held that failure to satisfactorily establish the usual wholesale quantities constitutes a failure to establish one of the essential elements of a valid reappraisement. If appellant has failed to establish the usual wholesale quantities, then, in accordance with the foregoing, it seems clear that he has failed to meet his burden of proof, and the valuation set by the appraiser must stand. Por reasons presently to appear, the outcome of this case depends on whether [42]*42appeallant has introduced substantial evidence to establish the usual wholesale quantities.

Appellant introduced in evidence, as plaintiff’s Exhibit 4, an affidavit by one Hans Nitzsche, a director of a German company which manufactured and sold the involved matrix board for consumption in Germany and export to the United States. In that affidavit, the affiant declares, inter alia:

3)That matrix board is used by newspaper publishers in the production of the illustrated sections of the papers; that during the years 1934 to 1940, there were twelve manufacturers of matrix board in Germany; that four of them were large manufacture’s [sic] and the balance were small manufacture’s [sic]; that all of them were members of the “Verband Deutscher Feinpappenerzeuger e. V., Gruppe E” which had its headquarters in Berlin; that the “Verband” set up the following classification of purchasers and fixed the following prices and discounts in the early part of 1934 and these classifications, prices and discounts continued through the year 1940.
(a) Wholesalers_80 Pfennige per square-meter less 25%
(b) Dealers_80 Pfennige per square-meter less 15%
(c) Agents_ 80 Pfennige per square-meter less 10%
(d) Newspapers_80 Pfennige per square-meter net
4) That newspapers are ultimate consumers and do not purchase matrix board for re-sale; that the “agents” referred to above are selling agents of the manufacturer and are not purchasers of matrix board; the 10% discount referred to in the schedule is the agent’s commission for selling the matrix board; that the “dealers” mentioned above usually purchase matrix board from the “wholesaler” mentioned above and sell only to the newspapers; the “wholesaler” sells mainly to "dealers”; that there are no restrictions whatsoever upon the re-sale of matrix board.
5) That the principal markets for the sale of matrix board, like that sold to the Brooks Paper Company, were Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfort, Munich, Leipzig, Dresden, Cologne, Stuttgart etc; the great majority of sales of matrix hoard to purchasers other than consumers were in quantities of 15.000 square meters or more; if a “newspaper” or a “dealer”, as classified above, or any other person, placed an order for 15.000 squ. meters or more of matrix board, he would receive a 25 % discount the same as a wholesaler.
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7) That the price fixed by the "Verband” for matrix board sold for exportation

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Bluebook (online)
40 C.C.P.A. 38, 1952 CCPA LEXIS 96, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brooks-paper-co-v-united-states-ccpa-1952.