Dalton Cooper, Inc. v. United States

41 Cust. Ct. 271
CourtUnited States Customs Court
DecidedDecember 4, 1958
DocketC. D. 2051
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 41 Cust. Ct. 271 (Dalton Cooper, 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
Dalton Cooper, Inc. v. United States, 41 Cust. Ct. 271 (cusc 1958).

Opinions

RichaedsoN, Judge:

This case consists of 25 consolidated protests against tbe classification of settled lime juice and filtered lime juice, which has been treated with sulphur dioxide, under the provisions of paragraph 806 (a) of 19 U. S. C. section 1001 (paragraph 806 (a) of the Tariff Act of 1930), as modified by T. D. 49753, as fruit juices, not specially provided for, containing less than one-half of 1 per centum of alcohol; and the assessment of the merchandise at 35 cents per gallon or, where entry was made after January 1, 1948, under that para^aph, as modified by T. D. 51802, at 20 cents per gallon.

The plaintiffs contend that the merchandise is dutiable as lime juice “unfit for beverage purposes” under paragraph 48 of 19 U. S. C. section 1001 (paragraph 48 of the Tariff Act of 1930), as modified by T. D. 50797, at 2% cents per pound or, where entry was made after January 1, 1948, under that paragraph, as modified by T. D. 51802, at IK cents per pound.

Nine of the protests are in the name of Dalton Cooper, Inc., 1 in the name of Lenox, Inc., 3 in the name of McLeer & McLeer, Inc., and 12 in the name of Diamond Ginger Ale, Inc.

The record in Dalton Cooper, Inc., and Meadows Wye & Co., Inc. v. United States, 32 Cust. Ct. 262, C. D. 1611, was incorporated in the 25 consolidated protests before the court. In the incorporated case, the plaintiffs’ claim that their settled lime juice was unfit for beverage purposes was not supported by the evidence of record, as no sample of the merchandise involved was introduced into evidence nor were witnesses interrogated as to whether the involved merchandise was comparable to the samples in the three cases there incorporated of Walker Services v. United States, 28 Cust. Ct. 109, C. D. 1395, Walker Services v. United States, 21 Cust. Ct. 218, Abstract 52607, and Von Laer v. United States, 8 Cust. Ct. 517, Abstract 47184, in which the court had held settled lime juice to be “unfit for beverage purposes.” The evidence in those three cases disclosed that the lime juice was filtered after importation in order to make it more attractive for sales purposes, and the court found that in the condition as imported the settled lime juice was unfit for beverage purposes.

The plaintiffs, in this case, have sought to supply the evidence which the court indicated was necessary in the incorporated Dalton Cooper case to prove that a lime juice is “unfit for beverage purposes.” It has been stipulated that the merchandise described as settled lime [273]*273juice on the invoices of the Dalton Cooper, Inc., protests before the court is identical with the settled lime juice involved in the incorporated Dalton Cooper, Inc., case. It was also stipulated that the merchandise described as settled lime juice on the invoice in the name of Lenox, Inc., is similar in all material respects with the settled lime juice involved in the incorporated case. Illustrative exhibit 1 was received in evidence as a sample representative of the merchandise involved in the incorporated case and as representative of the merchandise in the 9 Dalton Cooper, Inc., protests presently before the court.

Mrs. Garr, president of Dalton Cooper, Inc., testified in the incorporated case that settled lime juice is produced as follows:

The limes are collected and brought to the place where they are settled. They are washed. Then they are crushed in big stone mills. The juice runs off into very large vats, I’d say of possibly a thousand gallons, I dcgi’t really know, but they are very large. Then the juice is allowed to remain there anywhere from three weeks, possibly even more, if they are not in a hurry to draw it off. The one set of pulp rises to the top along with most of the oil. And there is another type of pulp which is heavier than liquid which would fall to the bottom. And the settled juice is actually what the word implies, settled. It is a clear juice that is drawn off from the center.

She further testified, in the case presently before the court for decision, that settled lime juice in exhibit 1 was imported from Dominica, British West Indies; that it gets darker with age and will ferment; that, if used in a beverage in an unfiltered condition, the pulp will rise to the top and form a scum and, in some cases, sediment resembling dirt will settle on the bottom; that, in the two instances in which her company, by mistake, sold unfiltered settled lime juice for use in beverages, large quantities of the merchandise of the companies (Lime Cola and Seven-Up) were ruined. (R. 9-21.) Dr. David Jorysch, chief chemist of H. Kohnstamm & Co., testified that settled lime juice is unfit for beverage purposes because it contains an excessive quantity of molds and micro organisms. His company purchased several barrels of so-called settled lime juice from Dalton Cooper, Inc., which it resettled, siphoned off the clear juice, and filtered the remainder, W'hich it used in an extract that eventually went into a beverage (R. 266). Henry A. Anusiak, assistant chemist of the American Beverage Co. in Brooklyn, N. Y., testified that his company bought settled lime juice from Dalton Cooper, Inc., and had to filter and pasteurize before using in its beverages; that the pasteurizing (heating) was necessary to kill bacteria; and that when his company tried using settled lime juice in a lime rickey, without filtering and pasteurizing, its customers returned the merchandise because it had fermented. (R. 329.)

The 3 protests in the name of McLeer & McLeer, Inc., involve 84 casks of Rose’s lime juice imported from L. Rose & Co., Ltd., in Lon[274]*274don, England, by McLeer & McLeer of New York City and sold to Distillers Co., Ltd., in Linden, N. J. Distillers Co., Ltd., used 24 of the casks of the lime juice as ingredients in making what was called Gordon’s Gimlet Cocktails, and sold the remaining 60 casks to the Diamond Ginger Ale Co. of Waterbury, Conn. Before using the 24 casks of lime juice in the Gordon’s Gimlet Cocktails, the lime juice was filtered, using a filtering agent in conjunction with the filter, thus making it clearer, and it was roused with compressed air causing the sulphur dioxide preservative to evaporate (R. 53), according to Alexander S. Haig, an assistant secretary and chemist at Distillers Co., Ltd. Mr. Haig stated that the lime juice was not fit for beverage purposes in its imported condition, because he did not consider a cloudy beverage as fit, but that if someone did not mind having a cloudy beverage it might be possible to use it as a beverage after aeration, which is a process of removing the sulphur dioxide. He also testified that plaintiffs’ illustrative exhibit 1 is representative of the lime juice which his company received from McLeer & McLeer, except that the latter lime juice was a little yellower in appearance (R. 31-32). Balanced against Mr. Haig’s testimony is the testimony of William A. Patrick, in charge of Diamond Ginger Ale Co.’s plant manufacturing sirups and extracts, that, to the best of his knowledge, casks of “Rose’s was always filtered” (R. 81); the statement by John Boyter-Smee, director of L. Rose & Co., Ltd., London, England, in response to interrogatory No. 14 in commission No. 1358 with respect to these three shipments to McLeer &

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Bluebook (online)
41 Cust. Ct. 271, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dalton-cooper-inc-v-united-states-cusc-1958.