Case ID: f_117/html/0366-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "LACOMBE, Circuit Judge", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SHAW et al. v. UNITED STATES.
    (Circuit Court, S. D. New York.
    May 31, 1902.)
    No. 3,139.
    1. Customs Duties—Protest—Citing Wrong Act.
    A protest claiming under a paragraph of a tariff act different from the-one under which the importation was made is insufficient, as not “distinctly and specifically” setting forth the importer’s claim, as required by section 14 of the customs administrative act of 1890, although the act applicable has a paragraph identical with the one cited.
    Appeal by D. A. Shaw & Co. from a decision of the board of United States general appraisers, which affirmed the decision of the collector of customs at the port of New York.
    The decision of the board, which was under review in this case, was on the question of the sufficiency of a protest filed by the importers. The merchandise in question consisted of tapioca flour, which was properly free of duty under paragraph 677 of the tariff act of 1897, which provides for the free entry of tapioca. The claim of the importers was that the merchandise was free of duty under paragraph 646 of the tariff act of 1894, which is identical in language with the said paragraph 677. The board held that the protest did not satisfy the terms of section 14 of the customs administrative act of 1890, which requires that protests shall set forth “distinctly and specifically” the reasons of the importer’s objections to the classification of the collector.
    Albert Comstock, for the importers.
    Henry C. Platt, Asst. U. S. Atty.
   LACOMBE, Circuit Judge

(orally). Unless well-established rules for the construction of protests are to be set aside, this protest is wholly insufficient. To hold that a reference to paragraph 646 of the act of 1894 is to be read as a reference to paragraph 677 of the act of 1897, as a clerical error, on any theory that the collector must have known what the importer meant, would be to carry the doctrine of liberal construction far beyond any limit it has ever reached before.

Decision of the board affirmed.