Court Opinion

ID: 9585974
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:05:51.731371+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:24:18.151986
License: Public Domain

DYK, Circuit Judge,
dissenting-in-part.
In my view, the majority’s decision rests on a misreading of the Court of International Trade’s decision. In the majority’s view, the Court of International Trade did not set aside the International Trade Commission’s (“ITC” or “Commission”) original determination on substantial evidence grounds, but solely on the ground that the Commission had failed to provide an adequate explanation for its determinations that there was neither material injury nor threat of material injury to the domestic diamond sawblade industry. See Majority Op. 1358-59.
*1363I think that the Court of International Trade’s decision rested upon two grounds — lack of substantial evidence and failure to provide an adequate explanation. See Diamond Sawblades Mfrs. Coal. v. United States, No. 06-00247, 2008 WL 576988 (Ct. Int’l Trade Feb. 6, 2008) (“DSMC I ”). The court repeatedly stated that it found a lack of substantial evidence on various points. See DSMC I, slip op. at 13 (“The court finds that the Commission’s conclusion of attenuated competition based on sawblade diameter is not supported by substantial evidence of record.”); id. at 15 (“[The] ITC’s finding of attenuated competition based on manufacturing process is unsupported by substantial evidence of record and cannot be sustained.”); id. at 23. Further, the court vacated and remanded the Commission’s volume finding, its price-effects determination, its impact finding, and its threat analysis as it found these conclusions to “rest, in part, upon ‘findings of subsidiary fact, or inferences therefrom’ that the court deems unsupportable.” Id. at 24.
Significantly, in its later decision in Diamond Sawblades Manufacturers Coalition v. United States, No. 06-00247, 2009 WL 289606 (Ct. Int’l Trade Jan. 13, 2009) (“DSMC II ”), in describing its holding in DSMC I, the Court of International Trade stated that “[i] n its opinion, the court found that the ITC had failed to provide an adequate explanation or substantial evidentiary support for certain ITC findings relating to the degree of competition between subject imports and the domestic product.” DSMC II, slip op. at 2 (emphasis added). The Commission, in its determination on remand, also viewed the Court of International Trade’s decision in DSMC I as resting upon both grounds, stating that
In [DSMC I ], the Court found that the Commission’s conclusion that competition between the subject imports and the domestic like product was attenuated based on sawblade diameter differences (Slip Op. at 13-15) and sawblade manufacturing process differences (Slip Op. at 15 — 16) was not supported by substantial evidence of record. The Court farther found that the Commission failed to explain adequately its conclusion, also in the context of its limited competition analysis, that “branded distributors” and “other distributors” served different end users. Slip Op. at 16-18.
The Court also instructed the Commission on remand to provide a more thorough explanation of its finding that domestic producers’ price declines in certain instances reflected a volume/priee tradeoff.
Diamond Sawblades & Parts Thereof from China & Korea, Inv. Nos. 731-TA-1092-, -1093, slip op. at 1-2 (Int’l Trade Comm’n May 14, 2008) (emphases added). The ITC, in its brief on appeal, argues that the court engaged in substantial evidence review, observing that in DSMC I, “the [Court of International Trade] did not merely remand the Commission’s determinations for further explanation. Instead, it explicitly rejected the Commission’s limited competition findings on the grounds they were ‘unsupportable.’ ” DefendantAppellee ITC’s Br. 22-23 n. 7.
While the remand for further explanation appears to have been justified, it seems to me that the remand, insofar as it was on based on substantial evidence grounds, was improper. Initially, I note that the Court of International Trade appears to have mischaracterized the ITC’s finding as involving a finding of “attenuated competition.” The primary definition of “attenuated” would imply “thin” or *1364“slender” competition. See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 141 (unabr.2002). The Commission never used that phrase, but rather described the competition as “limited.”
In my view, the Commission’s limited competition finding was supported by substantial evidence. The Commission found that competition between the subject imports and domestic merchandise was limited by sawblade diameter size. The Commission observed that nearly half of subject imports were sold within the small-diameter sector of the market, wherein the domestic producers made only 6.3 percent of their commercial sales. Similarly, nearly half of domestic saw-blades were sold to the large-diameter sector, while only 7 percent of Chinese imports and 14 percent of Korean imports were. The Commission found that there were physical differences in domestic saw-blades as compared to subject imports and that these differences affected the end use of the sawblades, further supporting a finding of limited competition. The Commission also found that competition was limited by customer type as domestic and subject suppliers made the bulk of their sales to different distributor types, with subject suppliers making approximately 74 percent of their distributor sales to “branded” distributors, while the domestic industry made 71.8 percent of its sales to non-“branded” distributors. The Commission also observed that domestic producers sold a significant share of their blades directly to end users, whereas subject blades were more often used in other applications. Although there was indeed some competition in the mid-range sizes, the Commission considered this overlap, and properly found overall competition between the domestic and foreign industries to be limited. While the Court of International Trade did not err in requiring the Commission to further explain why the competition that did exist did not create a threat of material injury, the limited competition finding itself was supported by substantial evidence.
We have long held that the Commission is entitled to receive deference for its reasoned fact findings. See, e.g., Nippon Steel Corp. v. United States, 458 F.3d 1345, 1359 (Fed.Cir.2006) (“So long as there is adequate basis in support of the Commission’s choice of evidentiary weight, the Court of International Trade, and this court, reviewing under the substantial evidence standard, must defer to the Commission.”). It is not the role of the reviewing court to “refind[ ] the facts ... or interpos[e] its own determinations” in such proceedings. Nippon Steel Corp. v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 345 F.3d 1379, 1381 (Fed.Cir.2003). The majority recognized this principle in reviewing the court’s opinion in DSMC II for substantial evidence, remarking that
[wjhile there is also some support in the record for a contrary finding, the conclusion reached by the Commission need not be the only one possible from the record. “Even if it is possible to draw two inconsistent conclusions from evidence in the record, such a possibility does not prevent [the Commission’s] determination from being supported by substantial evidence.” Am. Silicon Techs. v. United States, 261 F.3d 1371, 1376 (Fed.Cir.2001).
Majority Op. 1361. Here, the Court of International Trade appears to have exceeded its reviewing authority in DMSC I in remanding the Commission’s original determination as being unsupported by substantial evidence.
Under these circumstances it seems to me that the remand to the Commission *1365was partly wrong and partly right — partly wrong in finding a lack of substantial evidence; party right in remanding for further explanation. The question then becomes how to resolve this ease — a question of some complexity which has not been briefed by the parties and as to which I express no opinion. I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision insofar as it holds that the Court of International Trade’s decision in DSMC I does not rest on substantial evidence grounds.