Graves v. United States

61 Cust. Ct. 580, 287 F. Supp. 611, 1968 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 2260
CourtUnited States Customs Court
DecidedJuly 30, 1968
DocketA.R.D. 242; Entry No. 575-B
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 61 Cust. Ct. 580 (Graves 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
Graves v. United States, 61 Cust. Ct. 580, 287 F. Supp. 611, 1968 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 2260 (cusc 1968).

Opinion

Landis, Judge:

This controversy involves the valuation of an American Douglas C-47 aircraft, assembled in Costa Rica with foreign labor and so-called American made components and sold for export to the United States. The aircraft was exported in flight from Costa Rica on or about September 16, 1955, and was formally entered at Brownsville, Texas, on September 26, 1955, at plaintiff’s valuation of $85,000.

[581]*581The case is before us on application to review the decision and judgment below sustaining the appraisement of the aircraft (L. H. Graves v. United States, 56 Cust. Ct. 709, R.D. 11167) at the figure of $92,000, cost of production basis, under section 402a(f) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended by the Customs Simplification Act of 1956, T.D. 54165. The amount of $92,000 includes the value of American components, of which there were many, including an American-built fuselage in dispute here, returned by the appraiser at a total amount of $39,487.42.

Those components are concededly free of duty, as American goods returned under paragraph 1615 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, and the appraiser deducted such amount of $39,487.42 from the appraised value of $92,000 leaving a dutiable value of $52,512.58.

Appellant substantively alleges that the trial judge erred in holding, inter alia, that the proofs of record (1) failed to overcome the presumptively correct appraised values, (2) failed to establish the claimed $85,000 export value under section 402a (d) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, supra, and (3) failed to establish the claimed $77,948.42 ($38,861 for the American-built fuselage and $39,087.42 for all other American made components) value of the nondutiable American made components used in assembling the aircraft.

Appellant additionally argues that if there is no export value for the aircraft, as previously contended, then $85,000 is the proper amount of cost of production value on that basis. Appellant did alternatively claim cost of production basis in its pretrial rule 15(d) statement. However, it limited its argument below to the claim that export value rather than cost of production value was the proper basis of appraisement. Appellant might well have argued the proper amount of cost of production value before the trial judge. It elected not to. As the case comes to us, the question of whether we should now entertain appellant’s challenge to the amount of cost of production value found below, as distinguished from the cost of production basis of valuation, is a close one. An appellate court is not the place to raise new issues. United States v. Louis Victor et al., 20 Cust. Ct. 362, Reap. Dec. 7522 (review). And unassigned errors will not be entertained on review. Mutual Supply Co. v. United States, 28 Cust. Ct. 591, Reap. Dec. 8104 (review). However, as the trial judge did state, in his opinion decision, that the record failed to disclose “a cost of production [value] different from the cost of production [value] found by the appraiser which is presumptively correct,” we will review that holding and we accept, as implicit in the grounds of appeal, an assignment that it was error to so hold.

The trial judge also found that there was no foreign value or United States value for the aircraft under section 402a (c) and (e), [582]*582as amended, sufra. No error Raving been raised, we do not review those findings.

Two principal questions are posed by this application for review. First, the value of the aircraft under section 402a, as amended, sufra; second, the value of the American made components, used to assemble the aircraft, under paragraph 1615. Overriding both questions is the statutory presumption that, as to each of those values, the amounts found by the appraiser, are correct, 28 U.S.C., section 2633.

We first take up the value of the aircraft in the context of the claimed and appraised bases of valuation, as defined in section 402a, which provides as follows:

(d) ExpoRt Value. — -The export value of imported merchandise shall be the market value or the price, at the time of exportation of such merchandise to the United States, at which such or similar merchandise is freely offered for sale to all purchasers in the principal markets of the country from which exported, in the usual wholesale quantities and in the ordinary course of trade, for exportation to the United States, plus, when not included in such price, the cost of all containers and coverings of whatever nature, and all other costs, charges, and expenses incident to placing the merchandise in condition, packed ready for shipment to the United States.

V »{• H? H*

(f) Cost op Production. — For the purpose of this title the cost of production of imported merchandise shall be the sum of—

(1) The cost of materials of, and of fabrication, manipulation, or other process employed in manufacturing or producing such or similar merchandise, at a time preceding the date of exportation of the particular merchandise under consideration which would ordinarily permit the manufacture or production of the particular merchandise under consideration in the usual course of business;
(2)' The usual general expenses (not less than 10 per centum of such cost) in the case of such or similar merchandise;
(3) The cost of all containers and coverings of whatever nature, and all other costs, charges, and expenses incident to placing the particular merchandise under consideration in condition, packed ready for shipment to the United States; and
(4) An addition for profit (not less than 8 per centum of the sum of the amounts found under paragraphs (1) and (2) of this subdivision) equal to the profit which ordinarily is added, in the case of merchandise of the same general character as the particular merchandise under consideration, by manufacturers or producers in the country of manufacture or production who are engaged in the production or manufacture of merchandise of the same class or kind.

The record below consists of testimony adduced by both sides, appellant affidavits, and documents introduced by appellee. There is no [583]*583need to discuss appellee’s proofs unless appellant lias proved a statutory export value and tlie amount thereof or, alternatively, a cost of production value different from the appraisement. For, short of this, “[h]owever erroneous the appraiser’s action may have been in valuing the merchandise, it was incumbent upon appellant seeking to prove the correctness of a different statutory * * * value to meet every material issue in the case, and hence establish every element of that value in strict compliance with the dictates of section a] * * * supra. Failing to sustain this burden of proof, the value found by the appraiser remains in full force and effect.” Kobe Import Co. v. United States, 42 CCPA 194, 198, C.A.D. 593 [emphasis added]. We emphasize the latter since appellant, as is so frequently the case, stresses what is essentially negative so far as proofs are concerned, that the appraisement is erroneous. For the reason, as we shall now demonstrate, that we find nothing in the record that factually accords with an export value or a statutory cost of production value, other than the appraised value, as defined in section 402a (d) and (f), supra, we must affirm the decision below.

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Bluebook (online)
61 Cust. Ct. 580, 287 F. Supp. 611, 1968 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 2260, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/graves-v-united-states-cusc-1968.