Case Name: United States v. Cajo Trading, Inc.
Court: United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1968-02-15
Citations: 55 C.C.P.A. 61
Docket Number: No. 5263
Parties: United States v. Cajo Trading, Inc.
Judges: Before Woeley, Chief Judge, and Judges Rich, Smith, Almond, Kirkpatrick
Reporter: Court of Customs and Patent Appeals Reports
Volume: 55
Pages: 61–69

Head Matter:
United States v. Cajo Trading, Inc.
(No. 5263)
United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals,
February 15, 1968
Barefoot Sanders, Assistant Attorney General, Andrew P. Vance, Chief, Customs Section, for the United States.
dames R. Sharp (Sharp, Solter & Hutchison, of counsel) for appellee.
[Oral argument October 2,1967 by Mr. Vance and Mr. Sharp]
Before Woeley, Chief Judge, and Judges Rich, Smith, Almond, Kirkpatrick
C.A.D. 934.
Senior District Judge, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, sitting by designation.

Opinion:
WoRlet, Chief Judge,
delivered the opinion of the court:
The Government alleges reversible error in the judgment of the Customs Court, First Division, which held that liquidation of certain spring clothespins assessed at a duty of 20 cents per gross under paragraph 412 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as prescribed by Presidential proclamation No. 3211, 72 Stat., part 2, ch. 14, T.D. 54493, was defective; that the protest respecting the entry was premature; and that it was the duty of the collector to make a valid liquidation of the entry in accordance with the law.
On December 7,1957, Presidential proclamation No. 3211 suspended previously granted Trade Agreement concessions on spring clothespins, classified under paragraph 412 and dutiable at 10 cents per gross according to the Trade Agreement, and restored the pre-Trade Agreement duty of 20 cents per gross. The instant clothespins were entered December 27, 1957, and liquidated March 13, 1958. Subsequently, the Presidential proclamation was declared void by the Customs Court in Falcon Sales Company et al. v. United States, 47 Cust. Ct. 129, C.D. 2292 (1961), appeal dismissed on Government motion, 49 CCPA 139 (1962). There the court held that the President had exceeded the authority delegated to him by Congress in restoring the pre-Trade Agreement rate rather than following the required course of either accepting or rejecting the Tariff Commission recommendation to place a quota on clothespin importations.
In January 1963, the importer here requested the collector to liquidate the subject entry at a duty of 10 cents per gross on the grounds that the 1958 "liquidation" was void in view of Falcon Sales. The collector refused on the ground that the liquidation of March 13, 1958, not having been protested within the time provided by Section 514, bad become "final and conclusive on all persons." That ruling was reversed by tbe Customs Court, bolding tbat United States v. C. O. Mason, 51 CCPA 107, C.A.D. 844, certiorari denied, 879 U.S. 999, was stare decisis of tbe present appeal. Tbe correctness of tbat bolding is tbe issue before us.
Mason involved coffee imported into Puerto Rico from 1957 through 1959 and liquidated between 1957 and 1959, tbe protests being filed in 1960, all beyond tbe 60 day period provided in Section 514. Tbe ground for tbe protests in Mason was the holding of the Customs Court in Pan American Standard Brands, Inc. v. United States, 43 Cust. Ct. 122, C.D. 2115, decided September 15, 1959. There tbe court held unconstitutional as an unlawful delegation of legislative power a provision of Act No. 95 of tbe Legislature of Puerto Rico.
In Mason this court unanimously agreed with tbe Customs Court tbat
the provision of Act No. 96 under which the liquidations were made, having been found unconstitutional, was not a law; that it was inoperative and afforded no basis for the alleged liquidations and subsequent protests; that its invalidity dates from the time of enactment; and that although in some situations, where a statute is declared to be unconstiutional, there may be questions of vested rights and of public policy which cannot be erased by a new judicial determination, no such factors have been presented in the cases at bar.
Here tbe importer urges tbat tbe instant liquidation is equally void as in Mason/ tbat tbe Customs Court correctly held tbe protest premature ; and tbat it is tbe duty of tbe collector to make a valid liquidation of tbe present entry in accordance with law. The Government, on the other band, urges that Mason is not applicable, and that the protest should be dismissed for untimeliness since tbe importer failed to act within tbe 60 days set by Section 514.
In evaluating the instant record and arguments, tbe Customs Court stated tbat it was "unanimously of tbe opinion tbat it can suggest no rational distinction, between the situation in Mason and the one at bar, sufficient to justify not following it," adding tbat
If a liquidation based on an unconstitutional statute is void, one founded on an unauthorized Presidential proclamation appears equally so.
We find no error in tbat reasoning or conclusion. Tbe Government urges, however, that the authority in support of "the voidness doctrine" enunciated in Mason "clearly restricts its application to unconstitutional statutes." It further contends:
There is not before this Court any question of an unconstitutional statute or executive action. In the Falcon decision, the Customs Court adverted solely to the powers regularly conferred upon the President by a statute of unquestioned 'constitutional validity. Even if the Supreme Court's expression does establish the "total voidness" of a statute found to be constitutionally unsound, and we submit that this Court did not so intimate in the Mason decision, it does not declare that an executive action, incapable of affecting rights and obligations automatically, infects all other executive acts, however remotely connected with it, with "total voidness," alike as to those who timely challenge it and to those who neglect to do so. The executive act before the Court is not the issuance by the President of the proclamation restoring the higher rate of duty on spring clothespins, but the act of the Collector in effecting a liquidation of the specific entry here in issue, an act undertaken under statutory authority (i.e., section 505 of the Tariff Act of 1930), which is beyond challenge here, and which in fact defines not only the Collector's authority buit his obligation.
It is true that Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425 (1886), the authority principally relied on in Mason, relates to an unconstitutional legislative act which was held void on the premise that "[a]n unconstitutional act is not a law" and is "as inoperative as though it had never been passed." We have reviewed Mason in light of the Government's arguments here but remain convinced of its soundness. There, as here, Section 514 was involved as reflected by the following:
we think that a liquidation based on an unconstitutional provision of a statute is not a final legal liquidation to start the running of the statute of limitations within the purview of section 514.
s¡: >jt s¡t $ >H 4:
What, then, is the proper case which Congress intended will stay the 60-day requirement? [Emphasis supplied.]
Presumably a literal interpretation of Section 514 in Mason to ascertain Congressional intent would have required an opposite result. Here, too, a literal interpretation of that section would remove Mason as stare decisis of the instant appeal, but there is nothing in this record which justifies a different interpretation. While it may well be that there is a material difference between the collector's action here and his action under a constitutional statute or a valid Presidential proclamation, that question is not before us. What we do say here is that we have the same difficulty as did the Customs Court in finding a valid distinction between an unconstitutional statute on the one hand, and an invalid Presidential proclamation on the other- — the effect is the same in both cases. With due regard to the Government's arguments, we do not think it can fairly be said that Congress intended Section 514 to control in either instance.
The judgment is affirmed.
Cajo Trailing, Inc. v. United States, 56 Cust. Ct. 143, C.D. 2621 (1966).
Section 514 provides that a liquidation, reliquidation, decision of the collector, or his refusal to reliquidate an entry for clerical error shall be final and conclusive upon all persons unless the importer, consignee, or agent "shall, within sixty days after, hut not before suoh liquidation, reliquidation, decision, or refusal, as the case may be, file a protest in writing with the collector (Emphasis supplied.)
Assessed under Section 319 of the Tariff Act of 1930 and an Act of July 11, 1935, of the Legislature of Puerto Rico, as amended by a resolution of the Secretary of Agriculture and Commerce of Puerto Rico, approved by the Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico April 18, 1957, under authority of Act No. 77, approved May 5, 1931, as amended by Act No. 95 of June 21,1955.