Hayus-Sammons Chemical Co. v. United States

55 C.C.P.A. 69
CourtCourt of Customs and Patent Appeals
DecidedMay 9, 1968
DocketNo. 5257
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 55 C.C.P.A. 69 (Hayus-Sammons Chemical Co. 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
Hayus-Sammons Chemical Co. v. United States, 55 C.C.P.A. 69 (ccpa 1968).

Opinion

Almond, Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court:

Hayes-Sammons Chemical Co. appeals from the judgment of the Customs 'Court, First Division,1 overruling a protest against the collector’s classification of crude barytes ore in bulk.

The merchandise was classified as “barytes ore, crude or unmanu-factured” under paragraph 67 of the Tariff Act of 1980, as modified by the Sixth Protocol of Supplementary Concessions to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, T.D. 54108. A shipmment entered in April 1958 (Protest 58/17794) was assessed with duty at the rate of $2.70 per long ton and a shipment made in 1960 (Protest 60/27892) was assessed at the rate of $2.55 per long ton.

It is appellant’s contention that the merchandise is entitled to entry free of duty under paragraph 1719 of said Tariff Act as crude minerals, not specially provided for.

The statutes involved are, in pertinent part, as follows:

Paragraph 67, as modified:
Barytes ore, crude or $2.85 per ton (effective 6/30/56).
unmanufactured. $2.70 per ton (effective 6/30/57).
$2.55 per ton (effective 6/30/58).

Paragraph 1719 [Free List] :

Mineral®, crude, or not advanced in value or condition by -refining or grinding, or by other process of manufacture, not specially provided for.

[71]*71We have reviewed the evidence of record and find that it has been fairly and comprehensively set forth in the opinion of the Customs Court in summary form. We therefore adopt that summary as follows:

Evidence in the instant da'se sltowed that the material imported from Mexico, referred to as 'barite, was purchased and sold pursuant to no specification that it 'have any specific barium sulphate Content. Such merchandise w:as ground and sold to oilfield drillers and producers drilling oil and gas wells for use in drilling mud. One Company aliso sold it for weighting down pipes so they would sink and for weighting pneumiatic tires to give them more traction. In those cases, also, the 'specific gravity was the prime function of 'the material.
The plaintiffs herein regularly had the material tested not only for its specific gravity but for its barium sulphate content. Another importer had barium sulphate tests run for a short time, but not thereafter. A third did not run chemical tests but only the physical test for specific gravity. One witness testified that hardness tests were run to show the soluble calcium and magnesium salts present, as they have a somewhat deleterious effect on some drilling muds, and it is desirable to keep them at a minimum. Tentative specifications of the American Petroleum Institute covering barite for drilling muds, drawn up in March 1962, were received in evidence as plaintiffs’ exhibit 6. They provide for a minimum specific gravity of 4.20 and require a hardness test and a wet screen analysis. There was testimony that these specifications were accepted by the industry as minimum standards and were more lenient than those used prior to that time.
The witnesses did not use the material imported from Mexico for extracting barium sulphate or any other mineral. Claborne B. Brazeal, president of the importing company, testified that the material was marketed as barite drilling mud 'and was not offered for any other use, “[b]eeause we felt like that we didn’t have material to offer to any other market. The material was not suitable for any other market except for the drilling mud industry.” He did have a request from .the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Oo. for some chemical grade material but he was unable to meet their specifications of at least 94 percent barium sulphate .and relatively small amounts of other minerals, such as iron and strontium. Other witnesses also had attempted to sell the material for paint pigment or for the manufacture of barium chemicals, but could not meet the required specifications. A witness whose firm mined and sold barytes ore for these purposes testified that it was sold on the basis of a barium sulphate content of 96 percent and an iron content of 1 percent.
John G. I/ipps, Jr., a chemical engineer and owner and manager of Pan American Laboratories, testified that he had made over 5,000 analyses of material imported by the plaintiff company from Mexico for specific gravity and barium sulphate content. Specific gravity varied from 4.19 to 4.38 and barium sulphate from 75 to 95 percent. Other materials were present which have a similar specific gravity, such as strontium sulphate and some iron compounds. He also detected without quantitative or qualitative analysis, the presence of a material commonly called B«Os, a mixture of iron and aluminum oxide, and sometimes noticed the presence of carbonates and traces of metallic elements, such as nickel and copper. In analyzing the material covered by protest No. 60/27892, he noted the presence of a mixture of inorganic minerals and less than 1 percent of metallic material. Carbonates and ILOa were also detected in material which contained over 90 percent barium sulphate. He had [72]*72made 5 or 10 complete analyses of tlie material, which, included strontium content, iron content, silica, metallic elements, manganese, and barium carbonate.
Paul Seitz, a chemist associated with the plaintiff company, who also tested the barite material imported from Mexico for specific gravity and for barium sulphate content, found the former to range from 4.18 to 4.4 and the latter from 75 to over 90 percent. He detected the presence of R2O3, which he described as a compound including ferric oxide and aluminum trioxide. He found no correlation between the specific gravity and the barium sulphate content of the material.

It is well established that the collector’s classification is prima facie impressed with a presumption of correctness. The burden rests upon the appellant to affirmatively remove that presumption and, in addition thereto, to prove his claimed basis for classification.

The issue, therefore, which must be resolved from the record before us, is whether appellant has affirmatively shown that the common meaning of “barytes ore, crude or unmanufactured,” was, at the time of adoption of the Tariff Act in 1930, so limited as to exclude the importation at issue. Davies Turner & Co. v. United States, 45 CCPA 39. The thrust of appellant’s contention appears to be that the merchandise as a whole consists of a mixture of various crude minerals, that nothing’ is extracted therefrom, that the use in which it is applied, drilling mud, is “completely different” from uses to which barytes ore was applied at the time of the enactment of the Tariff Act of 1930, and that the presence of the component minerals other than barium sulfate renders this particular material unsuitable and undesirable for the purposes for which barytes ore was imported in 1930. Appellant contends that it was the intent of Congress, manifested by the use of the word “ore,” to limit the term of the statute, “barytes ore, crude” to that commodity from which barium sulfate could be profitably extracted, and that paragraph 67 is therefore an eo nomine use provision embracing within its intendment (only) that ore “used or suitable for use for the profitable recovery or extraction of barium sulfate * *

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Bluebook (online)
55 C.C.P.A. 69, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hayus-sammons-chemical-co-v-united-states-ccpa-1968.