United States v. Manahan Chemical Co.

24 C.C.P.A. 53, 1936 CCPA LEXIS 155
Court of Customs and Patent Appeals·Decided May 4, 1936·No. No. 3935·Published

Opinion

LeNROOt, Judge,

delivered tbe opinion of tbe court:

This is an appeal from a judgment rendered by tbe United States Customs Court, Third Division, in reappraisement proceedings. Tbe merchandise involved is ammonium sulphate imported from Germany at tbe port of New York in seven shipments, extending from October 21, 1931, to September 6, 1932; separate entries were made thereon.

On August 13, 1932, tbe Secretary of tbe Treasury issued an anti-dumping order, T. D. 45849, pursuant to tbe provisions of section 201 of tbe Antidumping Act, 1921, relating to tbe importation of ammonium sulphate from Germany.

Appraisement of tbe involved merchandise was withheld after entry, and tbe same was not appraised until after tbe issuance of said antidumpirig order.

Tbe merchandise, under tbe Tariff Act of 1930, is free of duty.

Sections 209 and 210 of said Antidumping Act, 1921, read as follows:

duties of appraisers
Sec. 209. That in the case of all imported merchandise, whether dutiable or free of duty, of a class or kind as to which the Secretary has made public a finding [55] as provided in section 201, and as to which the appraiser or person acting as-appraiser has made no appraisement report to the collector before such finding has been so made public, it shall be the duty of each appraiser or person acting as appraiser by all reasonable ways and means to ascertain, estimate, and appraise (any invoice or affidavit thereto or statement of cost of production to the contrary notwithstanding) and report to the collector the foreign market value or the cost of production, as the case may be, the purchase price, and the exporter’s sales price, and any other facts which the Secretary may deem necessary for the-purposes of this title.
APPEALS AND PROTESTS
Sec. 210. That for the purposes of this title the determination of the appraiser or person acting as appraiser as to the foreign market value or the cost of production, as the case may be, the purchase price, and the exporter’s sales price, and the action of the collector in assessing special dumping duty, shall have the same force and effect and be subject to the same right of appeal and protest, under the same conditions and subject to the same limitations; and the general appraisers, the Board of General Appraisers [now the United States Customs Court], and the Court of Customs Appeals [now the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals] shall have the same jurisdiction, powers, and duties in connection with such appeals and protests as in the case of appeals and protests relating to customs duties under existing law.

The appraiser advanced tbe total value of the merchandise stated in each entry in his appraisement made pursuant to section 209 of said Antidumping Act, 1921, and appellee appealed to reappraisement with respect to the appraisement in each of the seven entries.

The relevant facts in each of the reappraisements are the same,, except as to the quantities and values shown in the invoices, and reappraisement 103725-A is illustrative of all the reappraisements before us.

In that reappraisement 15,000 kilos of ammonium sulphate, gross-weight, were invoiced and entered at $28.50 per thousand kilos. The following appraisement report was made under said antidumping act:

Appraisement Report Under Antidumping Act 1921
Finding of Secretary dated Aug. 13/1932 T. D. 45849 applies
The importer of this merchandise
an ^mPor^er under the law.
an esperte?
Foreign market value on date of purchase _$471.78__
Purchase price (Section 203) _$351.19_
Foreign market value on date of exportation ._$485.21_
Exporters’ sales price (Sec. 204) §_
Cost of production_
Entry Number — 325071 10/17/31
Appraised value, $471.78
Dumping duty 120.59

The foregoing is a typewritten or mimeographed form, and the underlined portions in the body of the report represent blanks in said form. All dates, figures, and prices appearing in these under[56] lined portions, together with all the matter following the words “Cost of production”, have been inserted in longhand. The report is upon a regular form provided for by article 796, Customs Regulations of 1931, for appraisement reports under said antidumping act. All of the longhand matter referred to is in red ink, except the items of appraised value and dumping duty, which are in black ink.

Appellee appealed to reappraisement in each of said cases, and all of said reappraisement appeals were consolidated for the purpose of trial. Appellee offered no testimony, but introduced in evidence each of the antidumping appraisement reports, numbered Exhibits A, B, C, D, E, E, and G, respectively.

The Government introduced the testimony of one Henry Rosenthal, a customs examiner who examined the merchandise here involved. By him the Government sought to prove the basis of the appraise-ments. The trial court sustained objections to questions directed to such testimony, to which rulings exceptions were duly taken.

The trial judge held that the appraisements under said anti-dumping act were void, and that the purchase price, the foreign-market value of the merchandise on the date of purchase, and the foreign-market value on the date of exportation, were each equal in amount to the entered value. Judgment was entered accordingly. Upon application for review of this judgment and decision, the Third Division affirmed the judgment appealed from, and from this judgment of the Third Division the Government appealed to this court.

Before this appeal was reached for argument, appellee moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that this court had no jurisdiction to dispose of the issues presented by such appeal.

The appellee contended that, inasmuch as said section 210 of the antidumping act provides that appeal may be taken “under existing law”, and the tariff act of 1913 was in full force and effect at the time of the enactment of said antidumping act, which tariff act of 1913 did not provide for an appeal to this court from a decision of the Board of General Appraisers (now the United States Customs Court) in reappraisement cases, we were without jurisdiction to entertain the appeal herein.

We held that the words “existing law” in said section 210 of the antidumping act referred to the law in force at the time of the importation of the merchandise subject to the provisions of the anti-dumping act, and therefore denied appellee’s motion to dismiss. United States v. Manahan Chemical Co., Inc., 23 C. C. P. A. (Customs) 332, T. D. 48195.

One of the principal questions before us is concisely stated in the brief of the Government as follows: -

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United States v. Manahan Chemical Co., 24 C.C.P.A. 53, 1936 CCPA LEXIS 155 (ccpa 1936).

24 C.C.P.A. 53 (United States v. Manahan Chemical Co.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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