Household Mfg. Co. v. United States

62 Cust. Ct. 198, 296 F. Supp. 323, 1969 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 3603
CourtUnited States Customs Court
DecidedMarch 4, 1969
DocketC.D. 3729
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 62 Cust. Ct. 198 (Household Mfg. 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
Household Mfg. Co. v. United States, 62 Cust. Ct. 198, 296 F. Supp. 323, 1969 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 3603 (cusc 1969).

Opinion

Bao, Chief Judge:

The merchandise involved in this case, entered at the port of Los Angeles, consists of blades or cutting units for so-called electric carving knives. They are described on the commercial invoices as “Cutting Blades for power machine for slicing meat.” The articles were assessed with duty under item 649.85, Tariff Schedules of the United States, at 27.5 per centum ad valorem and 5.5 cents on each side of the blades, as blades for knives which have folding or other than fixed blades.

[199]*199Plaintiff claims, in the alternative, that the merchandise is properly dutiable at 10 per centum ad valorem under item 649.67 of said tariff schedules, as other cutting blades for power or hand machines, or at 0.92 cent each plus 10 per centum ad valorem under item 650.01 of said tariff schedules, as knives not specially provided for elsewhere in this subpart, without their handles. Plaintiff also claims that if the specific rate of duty is applicable, it should be imposed on each cutting unit rather than on each side of the blade. Other claims in plaintiff’s amended protests are not relied upon and are deemed abandoned.

The pertinent provisions of said tariff schedules are as follows:

Pen knives, pocket knives, and other knives, all the foregoing which have folding or other than fixed blades or attachments,; and blades, handles, and other parts thereof:
‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡
649.85 Blades, handles, and other parts_ 5.50 each + 27.5% ad val.
Knives and cutting blades for power or hand machines:
❖ * * * * * H*
649.67 Other_ 10% ad val.
Knives not specifically provided for elsewhere in this sub-part, and cleavers, with or without their handles:
650.01 Without their handles_ 0.920 each + 10% ad val.

At the trial, plaintiff called Ronald Weinhart, vice president in charge of sales and production for Household Manufacturing Company. He has been with that firm for about 8 years. Previously, he had attended Wayne University in Detroit, had served in the Marine Corps, where he had received radio and electronics training, and had been a manufacturer’s representative in the radio and TV industry. He testified that his duties with Household Manufacturing Company are primarily in production and quality control and in the coordination of production to sales. His firm manufactures cutlery in all sizes, from paring knives to roast slicers and kitchen tools, and similar merchandise. The firm has manufactured millions of knives since he has been there.

Mr. Weinhart testified that he was familiar with the merchandise involved herein and described it as “units for the power machines, the blades.” A sample was received in evidence as plaintiff’s collective exhibit 1. According to the witness, the merchandise was manufactured by his firm’s manufacturing facilities in Japan for Troy Industries, as cutting units for their power cutter. Several hundred thousand of them were imported. The witness described the component pieces as follows:

[200]*200There are two sides to this cutting unit, a right-hand side and a left-hand side. That would be two pieces. There are two spring locking clips, one on the right-hand side and one on the left-hand side. This is to lock it into the power source. That would be two more pieces to have four. There are two rivets on each of the spring clips, which would be four more pieces, making it eight pieces. There is a rivet on the left-hand side which is called a keyhole rivet which fits into the keyhole on the left-hand side.
Q. Excuse me. You said left-hand side first. — A. Which would be on the right-hand side, the keyhole slot. This keyhole rivet has a second collar inside of it, which is movable, so that as the two sides oscillate, or move back and forth together, that little collar in there will roll with it to eliminate excess wear which, I believe, gives us ten pieces.

According to the witness, both sides of the cutting unit are hollow-ground on one side only; that is, the bottom portion of the blade is made thinner than the top part, so that the cutting edge can be sharpened to a finer dimension. Each side has a serrated edge. The inside of each piece has been surface ground to make it perfectly flat within tolerances in the thousandths of an inch. It must be flat so that the two sides can work together as a single pair. If the inside had been hollow-ground, he said, there would be a separation of the cutting edges and the two sides would not cut or slice when oscillating. The two sides are mated, so that they are identical when lined up side by side. The cutting teeth of each side is made to coincide with the cutting teeth of the other side, thus permitting the two, when oscillating, to cut equally. They are held together by a rivet. Only when they are together is there a full cutting edge. As a pair, the witness considered them a blade.

The witness testified that this merchandise was designed for an electric plug-in type power unit and that it was not usable in any other power source than that for which it was designed. "When the power unit is used with the cutting unit, the user does not move his hand except to place the cutting unit where he wants to cut. In the opinion of the witness, the action of the cutting unit combined with the power unit is a sawing action, but because of the power and the speed with which the combination oscillates, it achieves a more even cutting motion.

There was introduced into evidence a cutting unit similar to exhibit 1, except that it was manufactured for Johnson Industries (exhibit 2), and a power unit therefor (exhibit 3). The witness testified that the units were ordered as pairs of slicing blades for power units and that the power and cutting units were designed to be used together as follows:

The cutting unit itself is more than just a cutting unit. It has springs on the ends which have holes in them. These holes, after the blade is inserted into the power source, the cutting unit is [201]*201inserted in. There are a pair of nylon shuttles inside the power source which guide this in. There are metal tabs on either side, on both sides of the shuttle unit, which, when these springs are inserted, are depressed and then snap into position inside the shuttle, locking them so that the blade cannot be removed or will not remove itself while the power source is oscillating them.

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Bluebook (online)
62 Cust. Ct. 198, 296 F. Supp. 323, 1969 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 3603, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/household-mfg-co-v-united-states-cusc-1969.