Standard Fruit & Steamship Co. v. United States

17 Cust. Ct. 50, 1946 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 495
CourtUnited States Customs Court
DecidedAugust 2, 1946
Docket(C. D. 1019)
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 17 Cust. Ct. 50 (Standard Fruit & Steamship 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
Standard Fruit & Steamship Co. v. United States, 17 Cust. Ct. 50, 1946 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 495 (cusc 1946).

Opinion

Lawbence, Judge:

Plaintiff imported into the port of New Orleans, in four shipments, eight reciprocating steam engines and parts and eight electric dynamos and parts, except in the importation covered by protest 106414-K where some parts were missing. At the trial the four above-enumerated causes of action were consolidated and heard as one case.

The collector of customs classified the reciprocating steam engines and parts as dutiable at the rate of 15 per centum ad valorem under the eo nomine provision therefor in paragraph 372 of the Tariff Act of 1930. The electric dynamos and parts were assessed with duty at the rate of 35 per centum ad valorem under the provision in paragraph 353 of said act for “All articles suitable for producing, rectifying, modifying, controlling, or distributing electrical energy,” and parts thereof.

The propriety of the classification made under said paragraph 372 is not questioned. In fact, the single claim of the plaintiff is that the same classification should have been applied to all the articles comprising the dynamos and parts on which duty was levied under said paragraph 353. In other words, plaintiff insists that the collector should have treated the engines and dynamos as entireties and dutiable accordingly at 15 per centum ad valorem under said paragraph 372.

In support of its claim, plaintiff called as the only witness herein John Low, its marine superintendent for the past 20 years. He testified that he had supervised and directed the installation of the imported engines and dynamos in the vessels of plaintiff; that he had ordered them as generator sets, each set composed of an engine and dynamo bearing the same number; and that as installed in place in the [52]*52vessel the engine was connected to its corresponding dynamo by a coupling and bolts specially made for that purpose.

On cross-examination the witness said the movement of a reciprocating engine was up and down. Asked “And wbat does it operate?” he replied: “Operates the dynamo, and it operates a fan or operates a circulating pump, or anything requiring a circular motion,” adding “a propeller wheel.” The dynamo, he- said, was “a generator of electricity” which could “produce, modify, rectify, control or distribute electrical energy” and that it could only be operated by a steam engine or “a water wheel.” Asked specifically “Does a dynamo produce electrical energy,” he answered “Exactly, Yes.” He said it could be operated by a turbine steam engine; that the electricity produced was for “illuminating the vessel”; that the dynamo is made by a concern different from the one that makes the reciprocating steam engine; and that while reciprocating steam engines could be used for other purposes, nevertheless those in the present importation were used exclusively in the vessels of the plaintiff.

In its brief filed herein plaintiff states:

It will be noted that the protest filed by plaintiff in each of the cases consolidated herein claims “the reciprocating steam engine and/or parts including dynamos” to be dutiable at 15% under Paragraph 372. While the steam engine portion has already been returned at 15% ad valorem, the protest necessarily refers to and includes it (the reciprocating steam engine and parts), in view of the claim that it must be considered as a unit together with the dynamo, the plaintiff’s contention being that the entire shipment is an entirety dutiable at the same rate applied to the reciprocating steam engine portion (15% ad valorem).

On the established facts we are satisfied that this case is controlled by our decision in Standard Fruit & Steamship Co. v. United States, 11 Cust. Ct. 71, C. D. 796. Plaintiff,'however, in its brief seeks to distinguish the facts there and here present. In its statement of the two cases it says:

This case, arising under the Tariff Act of 1930, involves articles exactly like others previously considered by this Honorable Court in a case involving the same parties and a similar issue, decided July 14, 1943, partly in favor of plaintiff, and reported in C. D. 796, 11 Cust. Ct. [71], Advance Sheets Vol. 79, No. 5, page 13. That portion of the issue decided unfavorably to plaintiff in C. D. 796 has been presented again by plaintiff in the instant case on a record by which plaintiff believes this case is made distinguishable from the unfavorable portion of the decision in C. D. 796, and the cases therein cited in support of the Court’s adverse holding therein.
In C. D. 796, supra, the Collector had classified an importation consisting of a reciprocal steam engine and parts including a dynamo, as an entirety, dutiable at 35% ad valorem under Paragraph 353 of the Tariff Act of 1930. However, at the trial the government admitted that the reciprocating steam engine, being eo nomine designated in Paragraph 372 of the said Act, was dutiable at 15% ad valorem thereunder, and would now be so classified. The court accordingly held the reciprocating steam engine portion of the shipment to be dutiable at 15%, but denied the importer’s claim that the dynamo portion of the importation [53]*53should likewise be held to be dutiable at 15 % ad valorem along with the reciprocating steam engine, the court thereby affirming the classification by the collector of the dynamo portion of the shipment at 35% ad valorem under Paragraph 353.
In the case at bar, the collector, following the decision of this Honorable Court in C. D. 796, supra, has classified the reciprocating steam engine portion of the importation at 15% ad valorem under Paragraph 372, and has returned the dynamo portion at 35% ad valorem under Paragraph 353.
Accordingly, the issue here is confined to the so-called dynamos (and parts) which were imported with, and as part of the reciprocating steam engine.

Plaintiff further alleges in its brief that—

In the case at bar, there is no dispute about the fact that the importations in each case consolidated herein, consist of a complete reciprocating steam engine with parts, intended to generate electricity for illumination of the vessels for which each was specially made, fitted, and installed. * =t= *

It is somewhat paradoxical to characterize the subject of each of the present importations as consisting “of a complete reciprocating steam engine * * * intended to generate electricity.” [Italics supplied]. If we were to hold that a dynamo loses its tariff identity as such and becomes an integral and constituent part of the steam engine, which furnishes the motivating power, it would be just as logical to hold that because it is merely the power-generating mechanism the engine is no longer an engine but becomes for tariff purposes an integral and indispensable part of the dynamo. The fact is, however, that the engine and .the dynamo are two separate and distinct dutiable entities. Therefore, plaintiff's description of each importation as a “complete reciprocating steam engine” is not altogether accurate, any more than is its statement that “there is no dispute about the fact.” The contention that the two mechanisms constitute an entirety is emphatically denied by the defendant.

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Bluebook (online)
17 Cust. Ct. 50, 1946 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 495, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/standard-fruit-steamship-co-v-united-states-cusc-1946.