D. & B. Import Corp. v. United States

29 C.C.P.A. 65, 1941 CCPA LEXIS 147
CourtCourt of Customs and Patent Appeals
DecidedMay 5, 1941
DocketNo. 4334
StatusPublished

This text of 29 C.C.P.A. 65 (D. & B. Import Corp. 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
D. & B. Import Corp. v. United States, 29 C.C.P.A. 65, 1941 CCPA LEXIS 147 (ccpa 1941).

Opinion

Lenroot, Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal from a judgment of the United States Customs Court (Third Division) overruling a protest of appellant against the assessment by the collector at the port of New York of duty at 5 dollars per gallon under paragraph 802 of the Tariff Act of 1930 upon certain bottles of Bacardi rum. The rum was imported from Bermuda in two shipments, one on May 15, 1934, and the other on June 14, 1934, and entered in bonded warehouse at the port of New York.

Appellant made various claims in its protest, but by stipulation limited its claims to those hereinafter set forth.

Before the Customs Court the cause was submitted upon a stipulation, Exhibit 1 which, omitting the schedule attached thereto, reads as follows:

It Is Stipulated by and between the Assistant Attorney General for the United States and counsel for the importer in the above entitled case:
That the merchandise here involved consists of bacardi rum in bottles each containing one gallon or less manufactured or produced in the Republic of Cuba by Compañía Ron Bacardia, S. A. Santiago de Cuba.
That in or about June, 1932, said rum was sold and shipped by the Compania Ron Bacardi to Chartier & Co. at St. Georges, Bermuda. That upon arrival at St. Georges, Bermuda, said rum was placed in customs bonded warehouse by Chartier & Co. and remained in continuous customs custody at that port without being changed in form or condition.
[67]*67That in or about February, 1934, said rum was sold by Chartier & Co. to the D. & B. Import Corporation, the plaintiff herein, and was shipped out of customs custody in Bermuda by said Chartier & Co. to said D. & B. Import Corporation at New York. That upon arrival at New York, said merchandise was entered for warehouse by plaintiff under Warehouse Bond Entries 57218 of May 15, 1934, and 59826 of June 14, 1934.
That subsequent to its importation at New York a part of said rum was exported and a part withdrawn for consumption in the United States.
That the quantity of said rum withdrawn for consumption in the United States and the dates of each withdrawal are as set forth in Schedule “A” attached hereto and made a part hereof.
That all of said rum withdrawn for consumption in the United States as set forth in said Schedule “A” was assessed for duty by the Collector of Customs at $5.00 per gallon under Paragraph 802 of the Tariff Act of 1930.
That the protest is limited to the quantities withdrawn for consumption as shown by the said Schedule “A” and is further limited to the claims:
(1) That the merchandise withdrawn from bonded warehouse for consumption in the United States prior to September 3, 1934, is properly dutiable at $5.00 per gallon, less 20 per cent under and by virtue of the Convention of Commercial Reciprocity of 1902 between the United States and Cuba and Section 316 of the Tariff Act of 1930.
(2) That the merchandise withdrawn for consumption on and after September 3, 1934, is dutiable at only $2.50 per proof gallon under the provisions of the Trade Agreement between the United States and the Republic of Cuba, T. D. 47232.
(3) That the protest is abandoned as to all other merchandise and in all other respects.

It thus appears that the only question before the trial court was whether the sale of the rum to a firm in Bermuda, its exportation thereto, and its subsequent importation from Bermuda to the United States, deprived it of its status as merchandise entitled to the benefit of preferential treatment under the Cuban Reciprocity Treaty of 1902, as to a part of the rum, and under the Cuban Reciprocal Trade Agreement of 1934 as to the remainder of the rum here involved.

Paragraph 802 of the Tariff Act of 1930 reads as follows:

Par. 802. Brandy and other spirits, manufactured or distilled from grain or other materials, cordials, liqueurs, arrack, absinthe, kirschwasser, ratafia, and bitters of all kinds containing spirits, and compounds and preparations of which distilled spirits are the component material of chief value and not specially provided for, $5 per proof gallon.

Section 316 of said tariff act reads as follows:

SEC. 316. CUBAN RECIPROCITY TREATY NOT AFFECTED.
Nothing in this Act shall be construed to abrogate or in any manner impair or affect the provisions of the treaty of commercial reciprocity concluded between the United States and the Republic of Cuba on December 11, 1902, or the provisions of the Act of December 17, 1903, chapter 1.

The pertinent parts of the Treaty of Commercial Reciprocity between the United States and Cuba, signed December 11, 1902, [68]*6833 Stat., part 2, p. 2136, (hereinafter referred to as the "Cuban Reciprocity Treaty,”), read as follows:

jjt # % * * * #
The President of the United States of America and the President of the Republic of Cuba, animated by the desire to strengthen the bonds of friendship between the two countries, and to facilitate their commercial intercourse by improving the conditions of trade between them, have resolved to enter into a convention for that purpose, * * *
Abticle II.
During the term of this convention, all articles of merchandise not included in the foregoing Article I and being the product of the soil or industry of the Republic of Cuba imported into the United States shall be admitted at a reduction of twenty percen'tum of the rates of duty thereon as provided by the Tariff Act of the United States approved July 24, 1897, or as may be provided by any tariff law of the United States subsequently enacted.
Article VIII.
The rates of duty herein granted by the United States to the Republic of Cuba are and shall continue during the term of this convention preferential in respect to all like imports from other countries, * * *

The act of Congress ratifying the Cuban Reciprocity Treaty, 33 Stat., part 1, p. 3, reads in part as follows:

* * * all other articles of merchandise being the product of the soil or industry of the Republic of Cuba imported into the United States shall be admitted at a reduction of twenty per centum of the rates of duty thereoD, as provided by the Tariff Act of the United States, * * *. The rates of duty herein granted by the United States to the Republic of Cuba are and shall continue during the term of said convention preferential in respect to all like imports from other countries: * * *.
Sec. 2. * * * that articles. of the Republic of Cuba shall receive, on their importation into the ports of the United States, treatment equal to that which similar articles of the United States shall receive on their importation into the ports of the Republic of Cuba; * * *.

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Bluebook (online)
29 C.C.P.A. 65, 1941 CCPA LEXIS 147, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/d-b-import-corp-v-united-states-ccpa-1941.