United States v. Rice & Fielding, Inc.

13 Ct. Cust. 149, 1925 CCPA LEXIS 84
CourtCourt of Customs and Patent Appeals
DecidedJune 15, 1925
DocketNo. 2520
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 13 Ct. Cust. 149 (United States v. Rice & Fielding, Inc.) 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. Rice & Fielding, Inc., 13 Ct. Cust. 149, 1925 CCPA LEXIS 84 (ccpa 1925).

Opinion

Hatfield, Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court:

The merchandise involved in this appeal consists of camel’s-hair noils. It was assessed for duty by the collector at 45 cents per pound under paragraph 18 of the emergency tariff act of 1921. The importer protested the collector’s classification and assessment. The Board of General Appraisers sustained the protest and the Government has appealed from the judgment entered below.

It is contended bjr the appellant that this case is controlled by the decision of this court in the case of United States v. Rice & Fielding, Inc., 12 Ct. Cust. Appls. 78, T. D. 40020, in which case this court, upon the record then before it, held that camel’s-hair noils were dutiable under paragraph 19 of the emergency tariff act of 1921, as camel’s hair advanced in any manner beyond the washed or scoured condition.

The appellee contends that the decision of this court in the case of United States v. Rice & Fielding, supra, was based upon a wrong interpretation of the facts in that case, and, for the purpose of fully explaining the commercial status of camel’s-hair noils, a record has been made up consisting of the evidence in the former case, together with additional testimony to the effect that camel’s-hair noils must be carded, which was the first process to which scoured camel’s hair was subjected in its development into “tops” and noils, as the first operation in the development of noils into yarn. The purpose of this additional testimony was to show that camel’s-hair noils are not camel’s hair advanced in any manner or by any process of manufacture beyond the washed or scoured condition of such hair.

It is claimed that, since scoured camel’s hair must be carded and combed in order to produce “ tops,” and, as the noils must besubjected to the carding process as the first operation in their development into yarn, they are no further advanced than scoured camel’s hair; that the carding and combing processes to which the hair of the camel is subjected in order to obtain “tops” has no effect whatever on the noils other than to separate them from the long fibers or “tops”; that camel’s-hair noils are specifically provided for in paragraph 651 of the tariff act of 1913, as noils, and have been considered by Congress in successive tariff acts since the act of 1890, as a distinct tariff entity, and, therefore, were not intended by Congress to be included within the provisions of paragraph 19 of the emergency tariff act of 1921, for camel’s hair “ advanced in any manner or by any process of manufacture beyond the washed or scoured condition.”

The case has been carefully and exhaustively considered and presented by counsel, many arguments and theories are advanced, and [151]*151many cases are cited, and, while tbe court bas carefully considered all of tbe suggestions and arguments presented by counsel and bas read with care all of tbe cases cited, we think it would unnecessarily lengthen this opinion to present our views on all propositions advanced for our consideration.

Paragraphs 18 and 19 of tbe emergency tariff act of May 22, 1921 read as follows:

Par. 18. Wool, commonly known as clothing wool, including hair of the camel, Angora goat, and alpaca, but not such wools as are commonly known as carpet wools: Unwashed, 15 cents per pound; washed, 30 cents per pound; scoured, 45 cents per pound. Unwashed wools shall be considered such as shall have been shorn from the animal without any cleaning; washed wools shall be considered such as have been washed jvith water only on the animal’s back or on the skin; wools washed in any other manner than on "the animal’s back or on the skin shall be considered as scoured wool. On wool and hair provided for in this paragraph, which is sorted or increased in value by the rejection of any part of the original fleece, the duty shall be twice the duty to which it would otherwise be subject, but not more than 45 cents per pound.
Par. 19. Wool and hair of the kind provided for in paragraph 18, when advanced in any manner or by any process of manufacture beyond the washed or scoured condition, and manufactures of which wool or hair of the kind provided for in paragraph 18 is the component material of chief value, 45 cents per pound in addition to the rates of duty imposed thereon by existing law.

Paragraph 651 of tbe tariff act of 1913 reads as follows:

Par. 651. Wool waste: All noils, top waste, card waste, slubbiflg waste, roving waste, ring waste, yarn waste, bur waste, thread waste, garnetted waste, shoddies, mungo, flocks, wool extract, carbonized wool, carbonized noils, and all other wastes not specially provided for in this section.

In tbe ease of Crimmins & Pierce et al. v. United States, 6 Ct. Cust. Appls. 137, T. D. 35392, this court bad under consideration tbe question whether “mohair noils” were included in tbe provision of paragraph 651, supra, for “all noils,” and it was there held that tbe provision for “all noils” in paragraph 651, supra, included tbe hair of tbe Angora goat. Many dictionary definitions of wool were quoted in tbe court’s decision, and, with reference thereto, tbe court said:

Aside from the force of the above correlated definitions, which uniformly, when read together, speak of the wool of “other like animals” and at the same time enumerate and classify as one of the “like animals” to the wool-producing sheep the Angora goat, the inquiry what is meant by “other like animals” is not difficult of conception when taken in connection with the purpose of the paragraph. That purpose is, of course, to include within the paragraphs and at the rates of duty therein prescribed all similar materials. The schedule is a classification and enumeration of materials and not animals.
“Like” animals, therefore, does not refer to physical construction or appearance of the animal itself, but to the fleece produced by and from the animal; and, therefore, embraced within the scope of other like animals must be included all animals producing wool or hair like that of the sheep or camel, of which the hair of the Angora goat, alpaca, and others are distinctly and unquestionably of a [152]*152class. Moreover, the title of the schedule is “Wool, and manufactures of.” While the rule is, of course, that the title of an act or of a paragraph does not control the legislation embraced therewithin, it is in cases of doubt an accepted source of information and can always be looked to as one of the guides to the legislative purpose. This rule obtains as to the schedule titles in tariff laws. The doctrine is appropriately stated in Hollender v. Magone (149 U. S. 586, 591), wherein the Supreme Court said:
The multitude of articles upon which duty , was imposed by the tariff act of 1883 are grouped in that act under 14 schedules, each with a different title, and all that was intended by those titles was a general suggestion as to the character of the articles within the particular schedule, and not any technically accurate definition of them.

See also Wilson et al. v. Spalding, 19 Fed. 304.

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