Bullocks, Inc. v. United States

6 Cust. Ct. 110, 1941 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 29
CourtUnited States Customs Court
DecidedMarch 3, 1941
DocketC. D. 441
StatusPublished
Cited by69 cases

This text of 6 Cust. Ct. 110 (Bullocks, Inc. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Customs Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bullocks, Inc. v. United States, 6 Cust. Ct. 110, 1941 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 29 (cusc 1941).

Opinion

Tilson, Judge:

The plaintiff filed this suit seeking to recover a certain sum of money alleged to have been illegally exacted as a bounty on imported merchandise from Groat Britain. In addition to the regular duty, concerning which there is no question here, a bounty was collected on 35 pounds of the merchandise at 9% pence per pound, amounting to £1 14s. 5d., which at the appropriate rate of exchange amounted to $8.54. It is this $8.54 which the plaintiff, by this suit, seeks to recover.

In view of the fact that the pleadings in this case clearly comply with the provisions of section 514 of the act of 1930 the motion to dismiss on that ground made at the trial is hereby denied.

This bounty was collected under the provisions of section 303 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which provides as follows:

Whenever any country, dependency, colony, province, or other political subdivision of government, person, partnership, association, cartel, or corporation shall pay or bestow, directly or indirectly, any bounty or grant upon the manufacture or production or export of any article or merchandise manufactured or produced in such country, dependency, colony, province, or other political subdivision of government, and such article or merchandise is dutiable under the provisions of this Act, then upon the importation of any such article or merchandise into the United States, whether the same shall be imported directly from the country of production or otherwise, and whether such article or merchandise is imported in the same condition as when exported from the country of production or has been changed in condition by remanufacture or otherwise, there shall be levied and paid, in all such cases, in addition to the duties otherwise imposed by this Act, an additional duty equal to the net amount of such bounty or grant, however the same be paid or bestowed. The Secretary of the Treasury shall from time to time ascertain and determine, or estimate, the net amount of each such bounty or grant, and shall declare the net amount so determined or estimated. * * *.

It appears that the bounty or grant in this case was collected by reason of the provisions of T. D. 47475. Said Treasury decision, so far as here pertinent, reads as follows:

Reference is made to T. D. 43634 and T. D. 44742, dated October 30, 1929, and March 25, 1931, respectively, setting forth the net amounts of bounties paid by the British Government on the export of certain manufactures of silk and artificial silk.
The Treasury Department is in receipt of official information that the present. rates of bounties or grants paid by the British Government within the meaning of section 303 of the Tariff Act of 1930 on the commodities herein described are the amounts set forth in the following table:
11. Silk fabrics made in Great Britain from raw silk on which the import duty of 18 pence per pound has been assessed and on which fabric a drawback of 36 pence per pound has been allowed. 9J4 pence per pound.
The net amounts of the bounties or grants on the commodities described above are hereby ascertained, determined, and declared to be the amounts set forth [112]*112in the above table. Collectors of customs will, therefore, collect additional duties equal to the net amount of bounty set forth opposite the respective articles produced in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and imported- or withdrawn from warehouse after 30 days after the publication of this decision, in a weekly issue of the Treasury Decisions. The table of rates herein supplements the table of rates published in T. D. 43634 on silk or artificial silk and the-rate published in T. D. 44742 relating to silk nets.

Tbe merchandise upon which this bounty was collected consists of' scarves or mufflers, and it is to be noted that the Secretary of the-Treasury in ascertaining and declaring the net amount of the bounty in said Treasury decision, made the same applicable only to silk, fabrics. Counsel for the plaintiff, in his brief filed herein, argues-as follows:

It would have been very easy to insert the words “or articles made therefrom”’ after “silk fabrics” in Item 11. However, the Commissioner of Customs did not. see fit to do it, and this court cannot be expected to insert such language when the-responsible official refused to do it.

In reply counsel for the defendant quotes the following from T. D.. 44742:

The question has arisen in the past as to the applicability of T. D. 43634 to-“made-up” articles composed in whole or in part of the particular items covered, by this decision. It has been the practice of the bureau to hold that this decision is applicable not only to the fabrics covered thereby but to articles manufactured from such fabrics as well. To hold otherwise would defeat the purpose of the-law. In order to obviate any possible misunderstanding in the future, it is therefore declared that the provisions of T. D. 43634 are applicable to the fabrics-enumerated therein and to such fabric content of articles made in whole or in part, from the said fabrics.

Counsel for neither party cite any authorities which they contend support their respective positions. Counsel for the plaintiff makes no-contention that the findings made in T. D. 44742 were by the Commissioner of Customs with the approval of the Secretary of the-Treasury, and that said findings are invalid because not made by the Secretary of the Treasury himself. We shall, therefore, not raise-the question of the validity or invalidity of said findings.

It is worthy of note that in said T. D. 44742, after holding that “It. has been the practice of the bureau to hold that this decision is applicable not only to the fabrics covered thereby but to articles manufactured from such fabrics as well.” Said Treasury decision closes-with the following:

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Bluebook (online)
6 Cust. Ct. 110, 1941 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 29, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bullocks-inc-v-united-states-cusc-1941.