Byrnes v. United States

8 Cust. Ct. 366, 1942 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 67
CourtUnited States Customs Court
DecidedJune 5, 1942
DocketC. D. 642
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 8 Cust. Ct. 366 (Byrnes 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
Byrnes v. United States, 8 Cust. Ct. 366, 1942 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 67 (cusc 1942).

Opinions

Oliver, Presiding Judge:

This is an action brought to recover duties claimed to have been illegally exacted on an importation of a certain chemical insecticide in tablet form.

The merchandise was assessed for duty at 6 cents per pound and 30 per centum ad valorem under paragraph 2 of the Tariff Act of 1930 as a polymer of acetaldehyde. It is known as metaldehyde. It is claimed to be free of duty under paragraph 1604 'as an agricultural implement.

The case was submitted for decision on a stipulation of counsel wherein it was agreed in part that the imported merchandise was “a polymer of acetaldehyde, a chemical compound in tablet form [368]*368known as mctaldehyde,” and that it “was chiefly used in the United States by farmers as an insecticide for the destruction of slugs and snails which are detrimental to their vegetable and citrus fruit crops.”

The two paragraphs in question, insofar as material, are as follows:

Par. 2. Acetaldehyde * * *; homologues and polymers of all the foregoing; * * * all the foregoing not specially provided for, 6 cents per pound and 30 per centum ad valorem.
Par. 1604. Agricultural implements: Plows, tooth or disk harrows, headers, harvesters, reapers, agricultural drills and planters, mowers, horserakes, cultivators, thrashing machines, cotton gins * * * and all other agricultural implements of any kind or description, not specially provided or, 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.

There is one controlling issue in the case at bar, namely, whether or not this imported chemical in tablet form is an agricultural implement. If it is decided that it is, then, and not until then, does it become pertinent to inquire whether or not it is excluded from paragraph 1604 because of the statement therein “That no article specified by name in Title I shall be free of duty under this paragraph.”

The history of litigation of paragraph 1604 and its predecessors discloses that with very few exceptions all the cases decided have been concerned not with the question of whether or not the article of merchandise before the court was an implement, but rather whether that which was admittedly an implement was chiefly used for agricultural purposes. One of the relatively few cases where the question of implements was directly involved arose in Richardson v. United States (8 Ct. Cust. Appls. 179, T. D. 37289). In that case certain carburetors were claimed to be free of duty as parts of farm tractors, and the court v*ent rather fully into the question of whether or not a large machine such as a tractor should be properly designated as an implement. The court held that it should. The dissenting opinion of Judge Barber, after setting forth some of the dictionary definitions of the word “implement” stated what might be said to be the ordinary or commonly understood meaning of the word “implement” when he said (page 187):

Other dictionaries express the same thought in different language but all, to my mind, indicate substantially the same thing, viz, that an implement in its common use and meaning is synonymous with tool, utensil, or instrument, and relates to an article of relatively simple construction and usually of personal manipulation. See Webster’s, Century, and Oxford dictionaries and Encyclo-paedia Britannica.

The question of construction of the words “ agricultural implements” was not again squarely presented to our appellate court until the case of United States v. Perry (25 C. C. P. A. 282, T. D. 49395). The merchandise there involved consisted of celluloid chicken leg bands. In its decision the court discussed very fully the meaning of, and the [369]*369limitations to be placed upon, the word “implement” as used in paragraph 1604, and said in part (page 286):

* * * We think the term “implements of any kind or description” as it appears in paragraph 1604 should not be given its narrowest meaning. Frequently “implement” is regarded as being synonymous with a tool or utensil used in manual work. The term has a broader meaning which we think should be accepted in arriving at the intent of Congress in the enactment of paragraph 1604.

The court, in applying the broader meaning to which it referred, held the chicken bands there before it to be agricultural implements. Later the court followed this decision by holding steel wire bale ties to be likewise free of duty as agricultural implements (Wilbur-Ellis Co. v. United States, 26 C. C. P. A. 403, C. A. D. 47).

Notwithstanding the fact that the court in the Perry case, supra, held a chicken band to be an “agricultural implement,” we do not understand that by this decision the court has intended to lay down a rule that any article or thing chiefly used for agricultural purposes is to be classified as an agricultural implement. In the absence of such a holding we cannot find the merchandise at bar to be so classifiable.

No record was made in the case at bar but the stipulation on which the case was submitted informs us that the imported merchandise is a chemical compound in tablet form chiefly used by farmers, at the date of importation, as an insecticide for destruction of slugs and snails. We are not advised how these tablets are used but we will hazard a guess that they are dissolved and that the solution so formed is sprayed on the plants or trees to be protected, or is injected into the earth. The method of its preparation or use is immaterial. It is imported in the form of a tablet. We cannot envision a tablet, powder, or liquid that could by the most liberal construction of the term be called an implement. There are no authorities that we have been able to find which cover this particular point, but there are indications in the tariff act that some of the things chiefly used in agricultural pursuits were not considered by Congress to be agricultural implements but were specially provided for eo nomine on the free list. Paris green, one of the better known insecticides, is eo nomine provided for (paragraph 1737). So are such items as fertilizer (paragraph 168.5), sheep dip (paragraph 1759), and manure (paragraph 1685). It would seem that none of the foregoing would be an agricultural implement. It is quite probable that the spraying equipment used in spraying an insecticide would be an agricultural implement, but not the liquid spray itself. In fact sulphur sprayers used in spraying trees and plants have been held to be agricultural implements (Abstract 8911), but the article so sprayed, sulphur, is specially provided for (paragraph 1777). Soil injectors used to inject chemicals (insecticides) into agricultural lands to rid them of insects and pests have been held to be agricultural implements (Abstract 24664), but [370]*370there is no record of the chemical so injected being of itself an agricultural implement. In like manner, a pump used to lift manure from a sump (Abstract 9630) and a manure carrier (Abstract 23401) were held to be agricultural implements, but the manure is still awaiting designation as an implement. The tank in which sheep are dipped might well be called an agricultural implement, but we submit that the liquid sheep dip in which they are immersed would not be so classified. A fertilizer spreader

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Bluebook (online)
8 Cust. Ct. 366, 1942 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 67, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/byrnes-v-united-states-cusc-1942.