Court Opinion

ID: 9460680
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:57:35.248825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:43.918183
License: Public Domain

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
Believing that the majority has taken an unduly narrow approach to the rights of customs brokers whose clients have become insolvent and that the issue here is of importance to the effective administration of the customs laws, I respectfully dissent.
I do not read the limited grant of subrogation in 31 U.S.C. § 193, on which Taub concededly cannot rely, as precluding its having that remedy here. Although I am not at all sure I agree with R. J. Saunders & Co. v. Vincent, 309 F.2d 65 (2 Cir. 1962), so heavily relied on by the majority, the case is clearly inapposite. There the account between the customs broker and the importer was in balance at the time of the bankruptcy, and sums earlier advanced like those here at issue were not involved. The United States made additional assessments thereafter, which the broker paid because, as nominal consignee and importer of record, it had filed a bond in which it was designated as principal and a corporate surety as surety. This court held only that since the broker had made itself rather than the bankrupt the primary obligor, it “was discharging its own debt,” 309 F.2d at 67.1 Judge Clark said that while the court did not “feel bound by the maxim ‘expressio unius est exclusio alterius,’ ” 309 F.2d at 68, it could not extend a statute allowing subrogation by a surety against an insolvent principal to cover the case of a solvent principal seeking subrogation against an insolvent who was not a party to the bond at all. This, and only this, was decided.
Moreover, so far as the instant case is concerned, we need not even reach the question whether § 193 has implicitly exclusive effect in cases within its general ambit, since that section applies only when the primary debtor is “insolvent” at the time the debt is paid by the party seeking subrogation. On the facts before us, in contrast to those in Saunders, Taub had paid almost all the sums in issue to the Government before the Chapter XI petition was filed.2 See In re Fastline, Inc., No. 65-B-872 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 14, 1967) (Babitt, Referee in Bankruptcy). Surely the majority would not contend that this statute implicitly forbids subrogation by a surety who has discharged a principal’s obligation to the United States prior to the principal’s insolvency simply because the statute does *1304not grant that right. If the statute does not preclude subrogation in that case, it does not do so here.
The Supreme Court has instructed that in bankruptcy proceedings courts are not to read “statutory words with the ease of a computer,” since “[t]here is an overriding consideration that equitable principles govern the exercise of bankruptcy jurisdiction.” See Bank of Marin v. England, 385 U.S. 99, 103, 87 S.Ct. 274, 277, 17 L.Ed.2d 197 (1966), a decision whose approach is not without some bearing here, and 1 Collier, Bankruptcy ¶ 2.09 (1974), citing innumerable cases. Under general equitable principles, Taub should be allowed subrogation to the Government’s priority if Herman would have been “unjustly enriched by the retention of the benefit . . . conferred” when Taub paid the duties. Restatement of Restitution § 162 (1937). Under such principles, it is not necessary that Taub should have been a surety on the customs duties bond executed by Herman, id., Reporters’ Notes on § 162, at 199, provided only that its payment of the duties was not “officious.” Id. § 162, Comment b; cf. id. § 2. Although the most common cases for allowing subrogation for discharge of an obligation other than by a surety are payments induced by fraud or mistake or payments effected by the debtor’s wrongful use of another’s property, see, e. g., In re Ennis, 187 F. 720 (2 Cir. 1911), app. dismissed sub nom. Bamford v. Russell, 226 U.S. 623, 33 S.Ct. 110, 57 L.Ed. 386 (1912), it cannot be reasonably said, in light of the crucial role and extensive duties of a customs broker in effecting the rapid entry of imports, so well described in Union Brokerage Co. v. Jensen, 322 U.S. 202, 204-205, 64 S.Ct. 967, 88 L.Ed. 1227 (1944),3 that Taub’s payment here was “officious” and that Herman therefore would not have been “unjustly” enriched by retention of the benefit thereby conferred. While it is true that if the broker had not made the payments but had required the debtor to do so, the debtor’s assets would have been depleted and creditors might not have extended credit, it is equally true that if the broker had left the goods on the dock subject to the Government’s lien, creditors would doubtless have been none the wiser. Taub paid the duties to enable Herman to conduct its business, in Herman’s interest and presumably in that of its creditors. To allow priority here in the interest of facilitating the process of importation and the collection of import duties therefore would not be, as the majority insist, to alter “the strict priority provisions of § 64 of the Bankruptcy Act,” but simply to permit subrogation to an admitted priority of the United States.4 The purpose of 31 U.S.C. § 193, enacted long before there was a bankruptcy act, was to bestow priority on a surety against an insolvent principal in the case there defined, not to limit the application of equitable principles in pro*1305ceedings under the Bankruptcy Act. Taub clearly was not “discharging its own debt,” 309 F.2d at 67.
I would reverse the judgment of the district court and the order of the referee.

. It was fairly disputed whether the importer remained liable at all, see 309 F.2d at 67, although the court assumed this arguendo.

. There is no evidence that Herman was insolvent when Taub advanced the duties, except for the $128.11 paid by Taub on April 7, see note 2 to the majority opinion.

. The Court there said :
Speed in making entry is vital, because goods cannot proceed to their ultimate destination until its completion. Apart from the fact that importers cannot always or even often make entries in person, the procedure makes demands upon skill and experience. The specialist in these services is the customhouse broker. In addition, he advances the duty in order that the goods may be cleared. 19 U.S.C. § 1505, 19 U.S.C.A. § 1505. The competence of the broker also bears on the efficient collection of customs duties in that the likelihood of additional assessment or refund after final determination of the duty is greatly lessened by accuracy in the tentative computation.
322 U.S. at 204.

. I am not at all clear that, as the majority suggest, a customs broker can protect itself in the situation here presented by the simple expedient of becoming a “surety on the importer’s customs duty bond.” Apart from the facts that customs brokers may not wish to assume such a continuing contingent liability and would doubtless demand compensation for doing so, I read 19 C.F.R. § 8.28(b) as requiring deposit of the estimated duties even when a bond has been filed. When, as here, the issue concerns the estimated duties already paid rather than liability under the bond, I fail to see what significance there would be in the customs broker’s having gone surety on the latter.