Court Opinion

ID: 9455233
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:15:19.990958+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:30.753421
License: Public Domain

RICH, Acting Chief Judge
(dissenting), with whom LANE, Judge, joins.
I respectfully submit that the majority opinion confuses two distinct questions: (1) what article description did Congress intend to enact?; and (2) what did Congress actually provide by the language of the article description that was enacted ? While only the latter is involved here, all manifestations of Congressional intent referred to in the majority opinion relate only to the former and are irrelevant.
That Congress cannot retroactively clarify away an omission (unequivocally admitted to in both the House and Senate reports) would appear to be self-evident.
The Rueff case is neither controlling nor even particularly relevant. In Rueff the original language (“all binding twine”) was, as this court held, broad enough to render the added language redundant; there was a decision by the Commissioner of Customs which Congress thought was clearly contrary to its intent as expressed in the original language; and there was no acknowledgment by Congress that something had been omitted from or was being added to the provision as originally enacted.
I realize that a reversal by this court will give the importer a windfall of sorts, but I do not consider that to be a justification for attempting to correct, retroactively, an error of omission admitted to by Congress. Importers are entitled to rely on the statutes as written by Congress and if Congress has failed to implement its own intent by appropriate words we should not do the implementing for it.