Freund Mayer & Co. v. United States

25 Cust. Ct. 166, 1950 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 28
CourtUnited States Customs Court
DecidedOctober 25, 1950
DocketC. D. 1280
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 25 Cust. Ct. 166 (Freund Mayer & 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
Freund Mayer & Co. v. United States, 25 Cust. Ct. 166, 1950 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 28 (cusc 1950).

Opinion

Rao, Judge:

Certain paper napkins, imported from England, were classified by the collector of customs at the port of New York as manufactures of paper, not specially provided for, and assessed with duty at the rate of 35 per centum ad valorem, pursuant to the provisions of paragraph 1413 of the Tariff Act of 1930. A protest was duly filed against such classification and assessment, claiming that said merchandise is properly dutiable at only 30 per centum ad valorem, as paper, embossed, cut, die-cut, or stamped into designs or shapes, which is likewise provided for in said paragraph 1413.

[167]*167The pertinent portions of the paragraph in question read as follows:

Papers and paper board and pulpboard, including cardboard and leatherboard or compress leather, embossed, cut, die-cut, or stamped into designs or shapes, such as initials, monograms, lace, borders, bands, strips, or other forms, * * * all the foregoing, 30 per centum ad valorem; * * * manufactures of paper, or of which paper is the component material of chief value, not specially provided for, all the foregoing, 35 per centum ad valorem; * * *.

At the trial, samples of the merchandise at issue were received in evidence as plaintiff’s exhibits 1 and 2. Counsel for the respective parties hereto thereupon entered into the following stipulation:

It is further stipulated between counsel that the items represented by Exhibits One and Two are paper napkins, and that said samples are printed but not lithographed, and were manufactured in the following manner: Rolls of tissue paper, approximately twenty-two inches wide, were unrolled through a machine which printed the designs appearing on the exhibits, and, by means of dies, cut or stamped out the individual napkins, and at the same time embossed the borders of the same.

It was further stipulated that the exhibits before the court represent articles that are complete and ready for use.

It is the contention of the plaintiff that the merchandise here in controversy falls squarely within the literal meaning of the provision of paragraph 1413, supra, for papers, die-cut or stamped into shapes; and that it would undoubtedly have been so classified were it not for the adverse decision of this court in the case of Winter Wolff & Co. v. United States, 61 Treas. Dec. 425, T. D. 45478. It is further claimed that the collector should have disregarded said decision for the reason that it has been repudiated by the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals in the cases of United States v. W. X. Huber Co., 30 C. C. P. A. (Customs) 183, C. A. D. 231, and United States v. H. Reeve Angel & Co., Inc., 33 C. C. P. A. (Customs) 114, C. A. D. 324.

Counsel for the Government asserts that the napkins before us are not ejusdem generis with any of the eo nomine designations in the provision for papers, cut to shape or design; that, as they are completely manufactured articles, they are more than paper, cut to shape, and are properly covered by the provision in paragraph 1413, supra, for manufactures of paper. It is also contended that the holding in the case of Winter Wolff & Co. v. United States, supra, has not been repudiated nor overruled by any subsequent decision.

The provision for papers, embossed, cut, die-cut, or stamped into designs or shapes, was initially enacted as a proviso to paragraph 415 of the Tariff Act of 1909. Except for the elimination of the words “bands and strips” in paragraph 332 of the 1913 act, and the restoration of those words in subsequent tariff legislation, there has been no substantial change in the language of the paragraph in question.

In the case of United States v. W. X. Huber Co., supra, which involved essentially a contest between the portion of said paragraph 1413 providing for papers, cut into designs or shapes, and the pro[168]*168vision in paragraph 1409 of the Tariff Act of 1930, for filtering paper, the merchandise being filtering paper in the form of circular disks, the paragraph here in question was subjected to an exhaustive analysis, especially with respect to its tariff history. The court there found, agreeably to its earlier conclusion in the case of Knauth, Nachod & Kuhne v. United States, 3 Ct. Cust. Appls. 183, T. D. 32465, that the proviso to paragraph 415 of the Tariff Act of 1909 was undoubtedly incorporated in that act to overcome the effects of the decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, in the case of Hamilton et al. v. United States, 167 Fed. 796.

In the said Hamilton case, there were involved certain tops or doilies, made of plain paper, the lace-like effects of which had been created by a single stamping operation. They were used for placing-on tops of boxes of candy, raisins, fruit, or the like, or for putting under finger bowls. The court, in holding that such merchandise did not fall within the provision of paragraph 407 of the Tariff Act of 1897 for manufactures of paper, stated:

* * * The plain paper might just as well be used for the same purpose, only it would not be so attractive. Except for the pleasing effect, it has been in no wise changed. It is still paper. It has not been made into an article having another use, as it would if manufactured into an envelope, a bag, or a box.

This and certain other considerations to which we shall subsequently refer, led the court in the Huber case, supra, to the conclusion that disks cut from filtering paper were more specifically provided for as paper, cut into designs or shapes, than as filtering paper.

It is urged by the plaintiff that if a doily was not a manufacture of' paper, neither is a paper napkin, and that if paper doilies and filter-paper disks are now properly classifiable as paper, cut into designs or-shapes, the same principle should control the classification of paper-napkins.

The fallacy of that argument lies in the assumption that, since a. doily is not a manufacture of paper, the same is true of a paper napkin. It is to be noted that the court in the Hamilton case, supra, drew a. distinction between paper doilies which it held to be paper, and certain articles which are clearly manufactures of paper, such as envelopes,, bags, and boxes. It based that distinction upon the fact that the-doilies, although enhanced in appearance, were not made adaptable to' any new or different use than the paper from which they had been stamped, whereas it was obvious that envelopes, bags, and boxes, although composed of paper, were used for purposes other and different from the paper of which they were composed.

To be sure, the decision contains no mention of paper napkins. But it cannot be denied that a paper napkin is an article which has. been adapted for a particular purpose, and that its use for that-purpose differs greatly from the uses to which paper, as such, is suited..

[169]*169Moreover, it appears that for a very long period-of time and under many different tariff acts, napkins made of tissue or creped paper have been consistently classified as manufactures of paper. See Morimura Bros. v. United States, 172 Fed. 248, and cases cited therein, and Winter Wolff & Co. v. United States, supra.

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Related

Freund Mayer & Co. v. United States
39 C.C.P.A. 123 (Customs and Patent Appeals, 1952)

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Bluebook (online)
25 Cust. Ct. 166, 1950 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 28, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/freund-mayer-co-v-united-states-cusc-1950.