Person v. United States

38 Cust. Ct. 447
CourtUnited States Customs Court
DecidedApril 2, 1957
DocketNo. 60598; protest 196823-K (New York)
StatusPublished

This text of 38 Cust. Ct. 447 (Person 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
Person v. United States, 38 Cust. Ct. 447 (cusc 1957).

Opinion

Rao, Judge:

An importation of so-called four-color prints in sheets was classified by the collector of customs at the port of New York as articles of surface-coated paper and assessed with duty at the rate of 5 cents per pound and 10 per centum ad valorem, pursuant to the provisions of paragraph 1405 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as modified by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, 82 Treas. Dec. 305, T. D. 51802. It is here claimed that the prints are photographs, within the purview of paragraph 1410 of said act, as modified by said General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, dutiable at the rate of 12)4 per centum ad valorem. The respective trade agreement provisions read as follows:

Paragraph 1405, as modified by T. D. 51802:

Papers with coated surface or surfaces, * * *
* * :}: * *
Bags, printed matter other than lithographic, and all other articles, not specially provided for, which are dutiable under paragraph 1405, Tariff Act of 1930, by reason of being composed wholly or in chief value of any paper specified in that paragraph:
* * * * * * *
Bags and other articles_50 per lb. and 10% ad val.

Paragraph 1410, as modified by T. D. 51802:

Drawings, engravings, photographs, etchings, maps, and charts:

Containing additional text conveying historical, geographic, time-table, travel, hotel, or similar information, chiefly with respect to places or travel facilities outside the continental United States_ 6)4% ad val.
Other- 12)4% ad val.

At the trial of this action, counsel for the respective parties entered into the following stipulation, which was received in evidence as plaintiff’s exhibit 1:

IT IS STIPULATED AND AGREED by and between respective counsel hereto that the imported merchandise in the case at bar consists of four-color prints which are identical to and produced in the same manner as the merchandise the subject of protest in the cases of United States v. Rudolph Lesch, 18 C. C. P. A. (Customs) 211, T. D. 44400, and T. D. Downing Company v. United States, 11 Cust. Ct. 57, C. D. 794, both of which records may b.e deemed to be incorporated as part of the record in the case at bar.
IT IS FURTHER STIPULATED that the merchandise herein is commonly and commercially known as “four-color prints”; that it is used in the manufacture of, and constitutes a part of box-tops, and that it was assessed for duty at 10 per centum ad valorem and 5 cents per pound under Paragraph 1405 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as modified by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, T. D. 51802, as articles in chief value of surface coated paper.
In making such four-color prints, the subject to be reproduced is set before a camera and an exposure made on a photographic film. From this exposed film a plate is produced by the photo-chemical process. This plate prints only in black. Then three successive photographs on films are taken of the original subject, and in each instance a filter is used — -the individual filters exclude respectively everything except yellow rays, or blue rays, or red rays. Then from the three exposed photographic films three plates are made by the photo-chemical process. Each of these plates is capable of printing the photographed subject only in the color which has been admitted to the camera by the respective filter, i. e., yellow, or red, or blue colors. The four plates are then successively used on a printing press with printing ink; the first plate prints the yellow portion of the picture; the second plate prints the red portion; the third plate prints the blue portion; and the fourth plate prints the black portion on a coated sheet of paper. The [448]*448picture thus made reproduces the original photographed subject in all its combination of colors.

Samples of the importation are in evidence as plaintiff’s exhibit 2 and plaintiff’s illustrative exhibit 3, the latter being similar merchandise, not taken from the instant shipment. Bach of said exhibits contains several individual floral prints on one sheet. In addition, there was received in evidence, as plaintiff’s exhibit 4, a single floral print, produced by the same process as the subject merchandise, although not used for the same purpose. Concerning merchandise of the kind represented by plaintiff’s exhibit 4, it was agreed that it was the practice of the collector, at the time of the instant entry, to classify same within paragraph 1410, as modified, supra, as photographs.

It was further stipulated that the merchandise at bar “is not a drawing, engraving, etching, map or chart.”

As is evidenced by the agreed facts," four-color prints produced by the process therein outlined, were the subject of decision in each of the incorporated cases. In United States v. Rudolph Lesch, supra, paragraphs 1305 and 1530 of the Tariff Act of 1922 were involved. The collector had invoked the former provision to classify the articles as printed matter on surface-coated paper. Free entry, by virtue of said paragraph 1530, was claimed by the importer, alleging that said prints were “photographs” imported by an institution incorporated for the encouragement of the fine arts. Predicated upon a finding that the prints “were produced by the photochemical process, which is described at length under the caption ‘Color Photograph,’ in the New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. V, p. 623, and in the testimony,” the trial court held the articles to be “photographs within the letter and spirit of paragraph 1530, particularly since the word is there used without limitation.” (56 Treas. Dec. 667, T. D. 43749.)

Upon appeal, this view was sustained. Owing to its pertinency here, we quote at length from the appellate court’s opinion:

After a careful study of the testimony and the several written articles on the subject of color photography, we conclude that the importation at bar is known as a 4-color print and was produced by the photochemical process; that is, the plates were made by the colored photography process which embraced both an etching and a photographic process and that the prints were made from the plates so produced.
As we understand it, ordinary photographs are printed from negatives or plates which are made by light exposures upon sensitized plates, the action of the light on the sensitized plate bringing about some kind of chemical action, and ordinarily a photograph is not the result of any etching process. In McLaughlin & Freeman v. United States, 18 C. C. P. A. (Customs) 128, T. D. 44094, where paragraph 1310 was under consideration, we defined a “photograph” as meaning “a picture or likeness obtained by photography.”
It seems obvious that the word “etching” as used in paragraph 1530, having no limitations, is used in a broader sense than the word “etching” as used in paragraph 1704, where all etchings made by photochemical or other mechanical processes are excluded. The instant importation is made by photographic and etching processes. The fact that the color photograph at bar was made in part by etching, under these circumstances, should not exclude it from the paragraph.

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Related

T. D. Downing Co. v. United States
11 Cust. Ct. 57 (U.S. Customs Court, 1943)

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Bluebook (online)
38 Cust. Ct. 447, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/person-v-united-states-cusc-1957.