United States v. J. E. Bernard & Co.

30 C.C.P.A. 213, 1943 CCPA LEXIS 11
CourtCourt of Customs and Patent Appeals
DecidedApril 5, 1943
DocketNo. 4416
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 30 C.C.P.A. 213 (United States v. J. E. Bernard & Co.) 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
United States v. J. E. Bernard & Co., 30 C.C.P.A. 213, 1943 CCPA LEXIS 11 (ccpa 1943).

Opinion

BlaND, Judge,

delivered the opinion of tbe court:

In the latter part of 1940, appellee, representing the Askania Regulator Co., of Chicago, consignee, entered at the port of Chicago, merchandise invoiced as “4 vertical field balances.” From the notation on the entry papers, the report of the collector, and the opinion of the court below, there seems to be some confusion as to whether the merchandise consists of complete articles or parts of articles. The report of the collector states that “The merchandise is Parts of Machines” and refers to it as “4 vertical field balances returned for duty at 40% ad valorem under Par. 360 as scientific instruments.” This confusion, however, is not a matter of concern here because in that portion of both competing paragraphs of the Tariff Act of 1930 (viz, 360 and 372) involved here, parts are provided for at the same rate of duty as the complete article.

Appellee protested the classification, making the claim, among others, that the goods were dutiable as parts of machines under paragraph 372 of the act at 25, 27K, or 30 per centum ad valorem. It was alternatively claimed that the goods were dutiable under paragraph 353 at 35 per centum ad valorem. All claims except that relating to 27}i per centum duty -under said machine paragraph seem to have been abandoned in the court below.'

[215]*215Appellee, in this court, filed no brief, nor did its counsel appear for oral argument.

The trial court sustained the claim of the protest that the goods were dutiable at 27 K per centum ad valorem under said machine paragraph, whereupon the Government petitioned' for a rehearing alleging that Illustrative Exhibit 1, which is a page from a catalog introduced by appellee, disclosed that'the instrument of which the imported articles were parts contained a telescope and that therefore the merchandise was properly dutiable as “optical measuring instruments” under paragraph 228 (a) of said act at 60 per centum ad valorem. The trial court, without any discussion of the question, denied the motion, and the Government has here appealed from its judgment.

Among other assignments of error in this court, the Government challenges the action of .the trial court in not holding that the field balances were dutiable as optical measuring instruments at 60 per centum ad valorem under paragraph 228 (a) of-the Tariff Act of 1930, in sustaining appellee’s protest, and in its denial of the Government’s motion for rehearing. The assignment of error relating to the petition for rehearing has not been urged here by the Government, and it seems too obvious to require any discussion that there is no merit in said assignment.

The question presented is whether the collector’s classification of the instant merchandise as scientific instruments (or parts of the same) is to be sustained or whether appellee’s claim for classification of said merchandise under the machine paragraph 372 was properly sustained by the trial court.

The pertinent portions of the two paragraphs involved read as follows:

Par. 360. Scientific and laboratory instruments, apparatus, utensils, appliances (including surveying and mathematical instruments), and parís. thereof, wholly or in chief value of metal, and not plated with gold, silver, or platinum, finished or unfinished, not specially provided for, 40 per centum, ad valorem; drawing instruments, and parts thereof, wholly or in chief value of metal, 45 per centum ad valorem [Italics ours]: Provided, That all articles specified in this paragraph, when imported, shall have the name of the maker or purchaser and beneath the same the name of the country of origin die sunk conspicuously and indelibly on the outside, or if a jointed instrument on the outside when closed.
Par. 372. * * * all other machines, finished or unfinished, not specially provided for, 27)4 per centum ad valorem: Provided, That parts, not specially provided for * * * of any of the foregoing, shall be dutiable at the same rate of duty as the articles of which they are parts: * * *

The testimony of but one witness was introduced. Herbert P. Niemann, representing the consignee, was called on the part of the appellee and testified in substance that the instant merchandise was used in the oil fields, especially in those of the southwestern portion of the United States, for the parpóse of exploration work for the location [216]*216of oil under ground and “more specifically, for the finding of subsurface structures where oil may have accumulated, because none of the instruments actually find oil directly.” He stated that he sold the instruments and taught their use; that they were known as vertical field balances or as magnetometers; that they were shipped from Germany; that he had used them himself for locating oil strata; and that the only customers to whom they have been sold (“outside of the school, or the Bureau of Standards”) are those making explorations for oil or mining companies. Then he described the involved instruments in the following language:

The Witness: The vertical field balance is also called magnetometer, because it is based in its measuring on the magnetic principle. It consists of two magnetic bars, horizontally suspended on a very sensitive bearing, and equipped with a small mirror, and a carrying body for the two magnets. The two poles of the magnet are suspended by adjustments so they are absolutely horizontal. Then the magnetometer is released at a certain station in the field which is to be explored for that purpose, and any tipping or any tilting of the magnet system as it is being affected by magnetic energies present at the surface of that particular station, will cause a deflection of the magnet system, and the magnitude of that is read on a scale on the instrument. Then the magnetometer is moved to the next and the next station, and all differences in magnetic energies at these various points are taken down, and afterwards plotted on a chart to give certain contour lines, which experienced geophysicists use for determining, or trying to determine, what substructure surfaces may be under those locations, rocks, domes, or any other formations that may be favorable to the accumulation of oil, or it has been used in mining work, where iron ores which are directly magnetic, are used as energy to be read and valued with this particular magnetometer. In one sentence, it is measuring the magnetic energies at any particular point of the surface of the ground. That is what it is actually doing. The information thus obtained is later interpreted in other means, but that is the purpose of the field balance itself.
By Mr. Schwartz:
Q. Do you know any other use than as just stated by you? — A. No other use except for geophysical work. None of these instruments, outside of the school, or the Bureau of Standards for calibration purposes, have been sold for any other purpose by our company.
Q. Does the vertical field balance illustrated in Plaintiff’s Illustrative Exhibit 1 utilize any energy or force? — A. Yes.
Q. What? — A. The magnetic energy on the earth’s surface at the particular spot where the magnetometer is set up is measured as an energy.
Q. And does anything happen to the balance, or any part of it when the energy is so utilized or applied? — A. Yes. Correctly it should be called rotating.

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Related

Manca, Inc. v. United States
45 Cust. Ct. 360 (U.S. Customs Court, 1960)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
30 C.C.P.A. 213, 1943 CCPA LEXIS 11, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-j-e-bernard-co-ccpa-1943.