Cresca Co. v. United States

38 Cust. Ct. 211
CourtUnited States Customs Court
DecidedMarch 26, 1957
DocketC. D. 1864
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 38 Cust. Ct. 211 (Cresca Co. 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
Cresca Co. v. United States, 38 Cust. Ct. 211 (cusc 1957).

Opinion

Donlon, Judge:

Plaintiff seeks to recover customs duties alleged to be excessive because certain soup mixes, imported by plaintiff, were classified as nonenumerated manufactured articles and charged with duty at the rate of 20 per centum ad valorem under paragraph 1558 of the Tariff Act of 1930. It is plaintiff’s contention that these soup mixes should have been classified under paragraph 775, either directly or by virtue of the similitude provision of paragraph 1559.

Protest 249794-K alternatively claims that duty should be at 10 per centum ad valorem under paragraph 1558, as modified, presum[213]*213ably on the basis of classification as a manufactured article not edible for human consumption. This alternative claim was not asserted on trial or in plaintiff’s brief, and it is deemed abandoned.

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, T. D. 51802, effective at the time this merchandise was entered, modified paragraph 775 to provide a rate of 17% per centum ad valorem on “soup preparations, composed of vegetables, or of vegetables and meat or fish, or both, not specially provided for.” This is the classification and the rate on which plaintiff’s claim for relief is founded.

Plaintiff, in its brief, presents no arguments in support of the claim to direct classification under paragraph 775, as modified, by description in the modified paragraph. No evidence was offered on that issue. Indeed, evidence plaintiff introduced as to the ingredients of these soup mixes (illustrative exhibits 8 and 9) leaves no room for doubt that they are not entitled to direct classification as soup preparations, composed of vegetables, or of vegetables and meat or fish, or both. If that claim is not abandoned, it is dismissed. We proceed to consider the protest claim, based on similitude.

These two protests, consolidated for trial, have to do with five different soup preparations. They are described in the testimony of plaintiff’s sole witness and identified on the labels of specimens, introduced in evidence as typical of this merchandise, as prepared “soupmix,” from which, by adding water and cooking, as the package directions advise, soup can be prepared as follows:

Egg drop- (collective exhibit 1)
Mushroom_ (collective exhibit 2)
Chicken noodle_ (collective exhibit 3)
Asparagus_ (collective exhibit 4)
Consomme celestine_(collective exhibit 5)

Other soup preparations were also imported, including lyonnais onion (collective exhibit 6) and green pea (collective exhibit 7). The lyonnais onion soup mix and the green pea soup mix were classified by the collector under paragraph 775 and are not in issue here. Presumably that classification was direct and not by similitude.

Defendant argues that this issue is stare decisis, having been decided, adversely to plaintiff’s claim, by our appeals court not once, but twice. Meyer & Lange v. United States, 18 C. C. P. A. (Customs) 79, T. D. 44043; United States v. Hess Bros., 23 C. C. P. A. (Customs) 172, T. D. 48026. On first reading, those cases seem to have much in common with the issue before us, and we proceed first to consider defendant’s claim that these decisions should control our decision. In this consideration, we do not have the benefit of plaintiff’s views. Plaintiff’s brief does not mention these decisions, much less indicate how they may be distinguished from the case at bar or, if they cannot be distinguished, whether the rule of stare decisis should be applied. [214]*214The earher of these two cases is the Meyer case. The appeals court was divided, three to two, on the very issue for which the decision is here cited by defendant. The only difference between the majority of the court and the minority seems to have been as to whether certain concentrated soup squares were dutiable, by similitude to “soups, pastes, balls, * * * and all similar forms, composed of vegetables, or of vegetables and meat or fish, or both, not specially provided for * *

The record in the Meyer case was not one that helped defendant in its claim for classification of the Meyer soup squares by similitude. The record consisted solely of the incorporated record in an earlier case, litigated under a different provision of the 1913 act, and a stipulation that the Meyer merchandise was the same as the merchandise in the incorporated record. While this identity of merchandise might be helpful in deciding classification by description, the record hardly could be said to give much support to a claim that was based on similitude of use.

In its brief discussion of the similitude issue, the majority of the court, in the Meyer case, cited with approval Lang v. United States, 4 Ct. Cust. Appls. 129, T. D. 33394, denying, under the 1909 tariff act, classification of bouillon cubes, by similitude to “vegetables * * * prepared * * A majority of the court found, in the Meyer case, that similitude classification could not be applied, because the record did not show similitude of material. The minority thought the incorporated record supported a finding of similitude, both of material and of use.

When the Hess case, supra, was tried, the record was developed more extensively than the record in the Meyer case had been, but as to ingredients, that is, as to material. The Hess merchandise also was described as soup tablets. Classification in liquidation seems to have been under paragraph 773, by description, not by similitude, as vegetables “prepared or preserved” not specially provided for. On the record before it, out appeals court followed its earlier Meyer decision. It is significant, in considering whether these decisions are stare decisis, that both the majority and minority of the court, in the Hess case, found that the record there was not substantially different from the Meyer record. The majority of the court, in the Hess case, said:

* * * we are not convinced that a showing has been made here which so distinguishes this case from the Meyer & Lange ease, supra, as to justify our holding that the rules there deemed applicable by the majority are inapplicable here. Definite percentages which were not shown there are shown here, but these, in our opinion, tend to strengthen rather than weaken importer’s case under the rules there applied.
Reconsideration has been given to the question of the applicability of the similitude doctrine. The Government has pressed its applicability here with even
[215]*215more earnestness than it did in the Meyer & Lange ease, supra. However, its applicability was urged there, and that it was there fully considered by us is evidenced by both the majority and minority opinions.
No phase of the issue has been presented here that did not receive consideration there. We feel that the question is stare decisis. (P. 176.)

The two judges who constituted the minority in the Meyer decision concurred in the Hess decision, because of the majority holding in the Meyer case, but said, as to the state of the Hess record:

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