United States v. Overton

6 Ct. Cust. 248, 1915 CCPA LEXIS 88
CourtCourt of Customs and Patent Appeals
DecidedMay 21, 1915
DocketNo. 1480
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 6 Ct. Cust. 248 (United States v. Overton) 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. Overton, 6 Ct. Cust. 248, 1915 CCPA LEXIS 88 (ccpa 1915).

Opinion

De Vries, Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court:

These importations were of placards, show cards, or advertising signs composed of cardboard and surface-coated paper. They were assessed for duty by the collector of customs at the port of New York under the provisions of paragraph 411 of the tariff act of 1909, which, in so far as pertinent, reads:

411. Papers with coated surface or surfaces, not specially provided for in this section, five cents per pound; * * * and all other articles composed wholly or in chief value of any of the foregoing papers, not specially provided for in this section, * * * five cents a pound and thirty per centum ad valorem; * * *

While the protests set forth many claims the importers, both before the Board of General Appraisers and this court, upon appeal, placed their reliance upon paragraph 420 of the act, which reads:

420. Manufactures of paper, or of which paper is the component material of chief value, not specially provided for in this section, thirty-five per centum ad valorem.

[249]*249Of some controlling force in the case are the provisions of paragraph 415, which provides, among other things, eo nomine for “card-hoard and hristol hoard.”

In its résumé description of the production of the articles it is stated by the board that the material which forms the foundation for each of the signs in question is a cardboard, in some instances entirely plain, while in others it has a surface coating'on one side; that superimposed on this cardboard by means of pasting, pressing, and die cutting are one or more thin sheets of surface-coated paper, each sheet usually of a different color; that as each sheet is added the entire sign is placed in a press, where, by the use of dies, certain designs, letters, etc., are cut out of said sheet and pressed upon the face of the sheet immediately under it, producing an embossed effect thereon of contrasted colors; that a separate and similar operation is performed on each sheet of paper thus added to the sign, with' the result that there is visible on the face of the completed sign — exclusive of its coated cardboard foundation — only such portions of the differently colored sheets of surface-coated paper as were separately die cut and embossed thereon in each operation. There is no lithographic printing involved in any of the processes employed in the manufacture of these signs.

As to a portion of the merchandise the board, made the following finding of fact:

(1) That the show cards or advertising signs covered by the various protests and case numbers set forth in Schedule A (which schedule is hereto annexed and made part hereof) are composed in chief value of either plain or coated cardboard, and we therefore hold such articles to be properly dutiable as manufactures of paper under said paragraph 420. That particular claim in each protest enumerated in said Schedule A is accordingly sustained, but only so far as it covers the show cards or signs contained in the specific cases therein enumerated.

As to other portions it made a different finding, which is not here relevant.

The Government appealed, confining its appeal to the merchandise covered by the above-quoted finding of fact.

The contrasted paragraphs quoted make it evident that while there is an eo nomine provision in the act for “cardboard” there is no specific provision in the law for manufactures of cardboard. Much stress is laid by the Government upon the different processes respectively employed in the manufacture of cardboard and paper. Those differences have been expressed by this court in United States v. Meyerson (2 Ct. Cust. Appls., 225; T. D. 31953), which it may be well to here repeat.

The goods are manufactured from paper pulp and belong to that class of manufactures from pulp known as cardboard. Cardboard is distinguished from paper as commonly understood in this, that it is thicker and heavier, stiffer and less flexible. Cardboard is not made on the usual paper machine, but on a special machine which [250]*250winds up on a cylinder sufficient pulp or several layers of pulp to constitute the thickness required. It is not dried on the cylinders as is paper. Neither is it calendered in the same way. The board is taken from the cylinder wet and is dried in the air, which gives it a stiffness not possessed by paper. Moreover, as it can not be wound on the cylinder without splitting, it is calendered in sheets and not on the roll, as is paper. To make plain board the pulp is run through smooth rollers. Embossed board is produced by passing the pulp between a smooth roller and an indented roller. The testimony further discloses that cardboard is the generic name for paper boards and that in trade and commerce that term embraces the various boards, which, on account of their color and appearance and the pulp material of which they are made, have received such special names as wood board, strawboard, chip board, plain board, red fiber board, embossed-leather board, and so forth. As already stated, the plain board in this case was classified by the collector as cardboard, while the embossed board, composed of the same material, manufactured in the same way, intended for the same general uses, and differing in no way from the plain board, except that it had been given the appearance of grain leather with an indented roller, was classified as paper. Such a difference in classification may have been moved by considerations of the higher duty, but that classification can scarcely be said to be distinguished by its consistency.

The question recurs, therefore, Under what provision of the law are these importations properly dutiable?

In the absence of an eo nomine or some specific provision embracing ‘'cardboard” and like merchandise, the legislative, administrative, and judicial' practice seems to have been to regard cardboard and such similar merchandise as pasteboard, press boards, bristol boards, and strawboards, all heavy, thick, subrigid goods, when made of a single layer, as paper, and when made of more than one layer as manufactures of paper regardless of thickness.

Thus the tariff act of 1883 contained no provision eo nomine for cardboard, and it was held by the Treasury Department that “certain so-called card middle-board” was dutiable thereunder as “all other paper not specially enumerated or provided for.” (T. D. 6632.)

The tariff act of 1890, by paragraph 420 provided in the paper schedule and paragraph for “cardboards,” eo nomine.

The tariff act of 1894, paragraph 308, likewise provided a similar legislative arrangement.

Under the tariff act of 1894 heavy advertising calendars “nearly one-fourth of an inch thick, surface-coated by the lithographic process, with an advertisement and calendar pasted on the front ” were held dutiable as manufactures of which paper was the component material of chief value. G. A. 4043 (T. D. 18730).

The tariff act of 1897 contained no eo nomine provision for “cardboard” or similar goods, but did for “paper” (par. 402) and “manufactures of paper” and manufactures “of which paper is the component material of chief value” (par. 407), all “not specially provided for.”

In G. A. 4330 (T. D.

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