H. Reeve Angel & Co. v. United States

14 Cust. Ct. 19, 1944 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 968
CourtUnited States Customs Court
DecidedDecember 27, 1944
DocketC. D. 906
StatusPublished

This text of 14 Cust. Ct. 19 (H. Reeve Angel & 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
H. Reeve Angel & Co. v. United States, 14 Cust. Ct. 19, 1944 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 968 (cusc 1944).

Opinion

Kincheloe, Judge:

This suit is for the recovery of certain customs duty alleged to have been improperly assessed on certain imported merchandise. The merchandise is invoiced as “Whatman” filter paper. It was returned by the examiner as “Filtering paper circles,” and was classified for duty by the collector as “paper cut or stamped into designs or shapes, etc.,” at 30 per centum ad valorem under that portion of paragraph 1413 of the Tariff Act of 1930, reading:

• Par. 1413. 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, or cut or shaped for boxes or other articles, plain or printed, but not lithographed, and not specially provided for; * * *.

The merchandise is claimed by plaintiff to be filtering paper and therefore dutiable at cents per pound and per centum ad valorem under the eo nomine provision therefor in paragraph 1409 of said act of 1930, as modified by the trade agreement with the United Kingdom, T. D. 49753, which modification is limited to “Filtering paper, valued at 75 cents or more per pound.”

Upbn the trial it was conceded by the defendant that the merchandise in question is filtering paper and not tissue paper; that it is valued at more than 75 cents a pound, and that the circles and the sheets out of which they were made were chiefly used for filtering-purposes at and prior to the enactment of the present tariff act (R. 3, 4, 10).

Exhibits 1 and 2 were received in evidence by consent as representative of the merchandise involved, except as to difference in the size of the circles in which this merchandise is imported, exhibit 1 representing a chemically prepared filter paper not washed with acid, and exhibit 2 being a chemically prepared filter paper which has been washed with hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid (R. 5, 6, 12).

Thomas L. Harrocks, vice president of the plaintiff company, testified that filtering paper of the class of . exhibits 1 and 2 is used commercially in this country only in circles, and that while some of it is imported in sheets it is always cut into circles before it is used; that it is not imported or used in rolls; that it is not used for straining-coffee, but only in chemical laboratories for separating solids from liquids; that the sheets out of which exhibits 1 and 2 were made are not tissue paper; that the tissue paper for straining coffee, which is a special kind of tissue paper, is made out of jute or the inner bark of a mulberry tree, while exhibits 1 and 2 are made from rags; and that during all the time he (witness Harrocks) has been with the importing firm, i. e., since 1919, filtering paper like exhibits 1 and 2 has always been classified by the customs officials as filtering paper (R. 11-20).

[21]*21Thomas M. Mints testified that he is president of E. H. Sargeant & Co. of Chicago, and has dealt in the involved merchandise since 1918; that he buys it from the plaintiff and has sold it and observed its use; that its only use is for filtering by chemists and scientists; that it is only "used in circles, and that he does not know what they would use sheets for; that the circles start from a size of about 2 inches and go up into larger diameters, depending on the size of the funnel in which they are to he used; that the customs classification of merchandise like exhibits 1 and 2 since 1918 has been as filtering paper at New York and Chicago (R. 22, 23).

Edwin Walker testified that he has been a wholesale jobber in paper for the past 36 years; that he has visited and observed the products of 300 or 400 paper mills in this country, and has traveled in South America and Europe on buying expeditions. He has enumerated many kinds of papers that he dealt in and has seen made in this country, including filtering and tissue paper. He further testified that “paper is first manufactured in rolls and is afterwards sheeted”; that a large percentage of papers is cut into sheets before they are put to use, although some kinds of paper are used both in rolls and in sheets, such as newsprint, as also wrapping paper.

In view of the conceded facts that the involved merchandise is filtering paper, and not tissue, paper, and that the circles and the sheets out of which- they were made were chiefly used for filtering purposes at and prior to the enactment of the present tariff act, the issue before us is really reduced to one of law; namely, whether the descriptive eo nomine provision of paragraph 1413 of the tariff act for “Papers * * * cut * * * or stamped into designs or shapes,” etc., or the provision of said paragraph 1409 for “filtering paper,” which is an eo nomine designation by use, more properly applies to the imported merchandise. The Government, of course, relies on the recent decision in United States v. Huber Co., 30 C. C. P. A. 183 (C. A. D. 231), as supporting the collector’s classification of the. present merchandise under said paragraph. 1413. In -that case the merchandise consisted of paper disks which were invoiced as coffee filter papers, and was likewise claimed dutiable as filtering paper under said paragraph 1409 of the tariff act. The collector held that the merchandise consisted of tissue paper cut to shapes, and, while classifying it under paragraph 1413 as paper, cut or stamped into designs or shapes, he applied the rate of duty prescribed for tissue paper in paragraph 1404 under the proviso therein reading as follows:

Provided, That no article composed wholly or in chief value of one or more of the papers specified in this paragraph shall be subject to a less rate of duty than that imposed upon the component paper of chief value of which such article is made:

[22]*22. The rate under paragraph 1413 presumably was lower than that under paragraph 1404.

This court in Huber v. United States, 9 Cust. Ct. 95 (C. D. 669), held that the uncontradicted testimony of plaintiff’s one witness in that case showed, at least prima facie, that paper of the kind from which the paper disks there in question were cut was, at and before the passage, of the Tariff Act of 1930, not commonly or commercially known as tissue paper, and that the paper disks, as well as the paper from which they were cut, were chiefly used for filtering purposes at and before June 17, 1930. The claim under said paragraph 1409 was accordingly, sustained by this court.

We think a brief review of the cases on the question of filtering paper is apropos. In Taiyo Trading Co. v. United States, T. D. 46426 (63 Treas. Dec. 966), it was held by Judge Dallinger that pieces of tissue paper cut into forms or shapes, which made them adaptable for particular and specific uses, were dutiable under paragraph 1413 of the Tariff Act of 1930 as papers, cut or stamped into designs or shapes, as classified by the collector, rather than as filtering paper under paragraph 1409 of said act, as claimed. No contention was therein made that the merchandise was not tissue paper, and no chief use of the merchandise seems to have been shown.

In Abstract 27264 (65 Treas. Dec. 1348) the merchandise consisted of different sizes of circular disks of tissue paper exclusively used for filtering coffee. They had been assessed for duty either under paragraph 1413 or 1404 of the Tariff Act of 1930, and were claimed dutiable as filtering paper under paragraph 1409.

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Bluebook (online)
14 Cust. Ct. 19, 1944 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 968, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/h-reeve-angel-co-v-united-states-cusc-1944.