United States v. James P. Heffernan Paper Co.

17 C.C.P.A. 61, 1929 CCPA LEXIS 15
CourtCourt of Customs and Patent Appeals
DecidedApril 29, 1929
DocketNo. 3145
StatusPublished

This text of 17 C.C.P.A. 61 (United States v. James P. Heffernan Paper 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. James P. Heffernan Paper Co., 17 C.C.P.A. 61, 1929 CCPA LEXIS 15 (ccpa 1929).

Opinion

Bland, Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court:

Certain paper, sold in Austria and imported at the port of New York, was assessed for duty by the collector at the rates shown in the appraiser’s answer to the protest, which is as follows:

The merchandise is described as printing paper and consists of printing paper which, in the opinion of this office, is not made in accordance with the requirements of T. D. 39778 and T. D. 39860. It was accordingly returned for duty as printing paper, at yi cent per lb. and 10% ad val. under par. 1301, Act of 1922.

Importer protested the classification, claiming the merchandise to be free of duty as “standard newsprint paper” under paragraph 1672, Tariff Act of 1922. It was alternatively claimed that if the merchandise was dutiable it was dutiable at 10 or 20 per centum ad valorem under the nonenumerated-article paragraph 1459. The protest was directed against certain portions of the shipment which was represented by “Protest schedule and schedule ‘A’," annexed to and made a part of the decision of the court below.

In the court below, as here, the sole question is declared to be, by all parties concerned: “Do the papers under consideration consist of standard newsprint paper in the tariff sense of that term?” No question is raised as to the proper classification by the collector, if the papers are not standard newsprint paper. The record contains more than 220 pages of testimony. There are 18 exhibits and many illustrative exhibits.

The court below, following Myers v. United States, 50 Treas. Dec.. 370, T. D. 41827, sustained the protest as to the items enumerated in said schedule marked “A” and in all other respects overruled the-protest.

At the time the case was tried in the court below, this court had not handed down the decision in the case of Grown Willamette Paper Co. v. United States, 16 Ct. Cust. Appls. 431, T. D. 43187.

The Government has appealed to this court and here contends that the term “standard newsprint paper,” as used in paragraph 1672,. means paper of the kind, quality, and size ordinarily and generally used by newspapers in printing their regular editions, and that paper which is susceptible of such use by some newspaper publishers, but which is chiefly used for other purposes, is not the “standard newsprint paper” of the statute.

The importer admitted in this court that no attempt was made in-the court below to prove that the paper in question was chiefly used for printing newspapers. Appellee, evidently, proposed only to show that some, if not all, of the paper in question was susceptible of a newspaper printing use. The testimony of the importer’s witnesses. [63]*63is characterized by such statements as “it could be used for printing-newspapers”; “it has been used to print newspapers”; “I have seen newspapers printed on this kind of paper”; “Many weekly newspapers are printed on this kind of paper”; and so forth.

The record shows that the paper is used for box and trunk linings, pen and ink tablets, cheap writing paper, catalogues, order blanks, and general job printing, such as posters, handbills, circulars, and dodgers, and the Government contends that the record shows that this is its chief use. A number of the exhibits are colored.

The evidence fairly shows that some of the papers can be used and are sometimes used by small newspapers and weekly newspapers who use flat-bed presses which operate slowly and that such use is made possible owing to the slow operation of the press which permits the ink to absorb slowly, thereby avoiding blotting. Some of the papers in controversy, being hard surfaced, do not absorb ink readily and have a “tinny” or more or less glazed surface, and are suitable for photogravure and other similar work, as well as for job work, where opportunity for the drying of the ink is afforded.

The record discloses that there are 14,000 weekly newspapers and 2,200 daily newspapers printed in the United States; that the weekly newspapers and small newspapers are, for the most part, printed from sheets and not from rolls; that flat presses use sheets and that rotary presses use rolls; that there are some rotary presses with slow motion which can use a grade of paper similar to some of the contested exhibits; that in fast-moving rotary presses, the paper must be strong and in rolls of certain size, and that the strength or tearing quality of the paper is more or less dependent upon the relative component parts of ground wood and sulphite.

The Treasury Department, in T. D. 40996, 47 Treas. Dec. 844, set out the departmental definition of standard newsprint paper as follows:

The term “standard newsprint paper” as used in paragraph 1672 of the Tariff Act of 1922 shall conform to the following specifications:
Weight. — 500 sheets, each 24 by 36 inches, shall weigh not less than 30 pounds nor more than 35 pounds.
Rolls. — The paper shall be in rolls not less than 16 inches wide and 28 inches in diameter. Sheets 20 by 30 inches.
Stock. — Not less than 70 per cent of the total fiber shall be ground wood; the remainder shall be unbleached sulphite.
Finish. — The average of 5 tests in machine direction and 5 tests in cross direction on both sides, moving the paper after each test, made with the Ingersoll glarimeter, shall be not more than 50 per cent gloss.
Ash. — Shall be not more than 2 per cent.
Degree of sizing. — Time of transudation of water shall be not more than 10 seconds by the ground-glass method or 5 seconds by the alternate methods.

Importer earnestly contends that this regulation, or its predecessors, when applied to the classification of paper like that in controversy, as was done by the collector in the case at bar, makes dutiable the [64]*64newsprint used by the country newspaper, and free lists the paper used by the great metropolitan newspapers, which, it contends, was manifestly not within the intent of the legislature.

The Government seeks to uphold the definition set out by the Treasury Department on the theory (if we correctly understand its brief) that the regulation made pursuant to the authority granted in the act for carrying out the provisions of the same, accurately provides a means of determining, at the port of entry, whether the importation is, in fact, standard newsprint paper or some other kind of paper. It points out that customs officers do not have the facilities for placing printing paper upon the press to determine its actual printing qualities, but that by tests carefully made by the Bureau of Standards and elsewhere, it has been ascertained that the specifications set out in T. D. 40996, when applied to imported paper, will definitely determine its character.

The importer argues, and to this extent is supported by amicus curies,■ The American Newspaper Publishers Association, represented by Elisha Hanson, attorney, that T. D. 40996 goes further than the law warrants and nullifies the law; that it sets up a standard not warranted by the wording of the act and which, in effect, is legislation.

In Crown Willamette Paper Co. v. United States, supra,

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17 C.C.P.A. 61, 1929 CCPA LEXIS 15, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-james-p-heffernan-paper-co-ccpa-1929.