James v. United States

48 C.C.P.A. 75, 1961 CCPA LEXIS 246
CourtCourt of Customs and Patent Appeals
DecidedApril 14, 1961
DocketNo. 5060
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 48 C.C.P.A. 75 (James 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
James v. United States, 48 C.C.P.A. 75, 1961 CCPA LEXIS 246 (ccpa 1961).

Opinion

MaRtin, Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal from the judgment of the United States Customs Court, Second Division, Abstract 64481,3 overruling the importer’s protest and sustaining the classification of a machine designed for packaging two-pound bags of sugar as an article having as an essential feature an electrical element or device under paragraph 353 of the Tariff Act of 1930. Appellants contend that the imported ma[76]*76chine should be classified as “machinery for use in the manufacture of sugar” under paragraph 1604 of the Act and hence free of duty.

Paragraph 363 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as modified by the Torquay Protocol to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, 86 Treas. Dec. 121, T.D. 52739, so far as pertinent, reads:

Articles having as an essential feature an electrical element or device, * * *, wholly or in chief value of metal, and not specially provided for
* «*9 * $ # * *
Other * * *_13%% ad val.

Paragraph 1604 of the Tariff Act of 1930, part of the free list, reads in pertinent part:

Agricultural implements: * * * machinery for use in the manufacture of sugar, * * *.

It appears that the imported machine was custom-built solely for the sugar refining industry and is designed to meter 120 two-pound portions of sugar per minute, place each portion in a bag, close and seal the bag, and eject it from the machine. It further appears that in the sugar refining plant where the imported machine is installed and operating, refined “extra fine granulated sugar” of a “commercial grade” comes temporarily to rest in a storage bin after a series of manufacturing stages. Sugar is taken from this bin as needed, and in one subsequent plant operation, sugar moves directly from the bin to the machine at issue here.

The sole question before this court is whether the imported machine is “machinery for use in the manufacture of sugar” as that phrase is used in paragraph 1604 of the Tariff Act of 1930.

The Customs Court4 found no dispute that the involved machine was designed for and is specifically used for the packaging of sugar. The court then held that packaging does not constitute manufacture and that “the type of machinery contemplated by Congress to be within the purview of paragraph 1604, supra, was to include only those machines used in the manufacture of sugar per se.” In support of this holding, the court quoted as follows:

Summary of Tariff Information, 1929, on Tariff Act of 1922, Volume 2, Schedule 15, Free List, page 2174:5

DESCRIPTION AND USES. — Sugar-mill machinery includes rolls for crushing cane and extracting the juice, filter presses, tanks, coils, and evaporators, and centrifugal machines for separating the molasses from sugar. In beet-sugar manufacture the crushers used in cane-sugar production are replaced by washers, slicers, and tanks for extracting the sugar with hot water.

[77]*77Summaries of Tariff Information, Volume 16, Free List, Part 1,1950, page 73:6

This summary covers all types of sugar-manufacturing machinery, which includes equipment used in processes ranging from the preparation of the raw stock to the refining of the sugar. Some of the equipment is standardized and some is specially designed and constructed for particular plants. Among the many kinds of machines used in the manufacture of sugar are cane knives, cane crushers and shredders, cane mills, beet slicers and diffuser tanks, juice heaters, earbonation tanks, filters, evaporators, vacuum pans, centrifugal machines, melting tanks, driers, sifters or graders, and grinding and cubing equipment.

Kef erring to these quotations, the court further stated:

* * * the type of machinery involved herein was not intended to be covered by the provisions of paragraph 1604 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as claimed herein by plaintiff. The list of the machines contained therein relates to the preparation of raw sugar as distinguished from the refined, finished product. Since the machine involved herein performs a function on the refined sugar, it does not appear to be covered by the provisions of paragraph 1604 of the Tariff Act of 1930.

Accordingly, the Customs Court overruled appellants’ protest.

Appellants now urge that packaging is an integral interwoven basic part of the manufacturing process and assert further that the imported machine:

* * * has a definite, vital functional use in the manufacturing process of sugar in that the main purpose behind its acquisition was to increase the output of two-pound bags manufactured by the Savannah refinery from 40 a minute to a possible 120 a minute * * *. Its prime manufacturing objective was to break through an existing bottle-neck in the production process.
*******
In other words, the machine in question was manufactured to achieve a definite increase in the production process of the refiner. * * *

Appellee, the Government, urges, on the other hand, that the imported machine is not used in the process of manufacturing sugar but is used subsequent to the manufacture of sugar.

Our responsibility in all cases involving the meaning of words in the Tariff Act is to endeavor to ascertain what Congress intended by the use of those words. To do so it is incumbent upon us to assume that Congress attributed to the words their common meaning unless the evidence or some other factor indicates otherwise. Here the congressional intent in the use of the words “machinery for use in the manufacture of sugar” must be resolved. The only word in this phrase which seems to cause some difficulty is the word “manufacture.” “Manufacture,” according to Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary (1938), is defined as follows:

[78]*78manufacture, n. 1. The operation of making articles for use by working on or combining material; the production of goods, etc., by industrial processes or art; as, the manufacture of lace.
‡ * $ $ * $ $
2. Anything made by industrial art or processes; manufactured articles collectively ; also, figuratively, the product or result of any process; * * *

Applying this meaning to the word “manufacture” as used in paragraph 1604, there can be no doubt that it does not encompass appellants’ sugar weighing and packaging machine. This machine does not make sugar or treat the sugar itself in any manner. Its only function is to weigh and package the manufactured sugar.

Although we do not believe that appellants contend that the machine makes or treats sugar in any manner, they urge that the machine should be exempt from duty for other reasons. First they call our attention to Savannah Sugar Refining Corp. et al. v. United States, 29 Cust. Ct. 88, decided by the United States Customs Court. This case involved an automatic machine known as a Servo weigher designed for weighing raw sugar. The Collector of Customs classified it as a machine, not specially provided for, under paragraph 372 of the Tariff Act of 1930.

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Bluebook (online)
48 C.C.P.A. 75, 1961 CCPA LEXIS 246, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/james-v-united-states-ccpa-1961.