Court Opinion

ID: 8309716
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-10-17 13:46:41.802597+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:44:40.678978
License: Public Domain

Lowell, C. J.
If this wool was worth more than 32 cents a pound at Montreal, the collector at St. Albans, upon report of the appraisers to that effect, would have been bound to collect a larger duty than if its value was 32 cents or less; but the importer was under no obligation to state in his invoice what he may have supposed the market value to be, unless he obtained the goods “otherwise than by purchase.”
The theory of the amended information is that this wool was obtained otherwise than by purchase, namely, by importation from Liverpool; but, as importation is not a mode of acquiring property, this ground was abandoned in argument, and the point now taken is that the purchase was made at Liverpool, and not at Montreal; or that, at least, this question should have been submitted to the jury. It is admitted that every fact is truly stated in the invoice unless it be the place of purchase. The goods were bought, and they cost at Montreal less than 32 cents; but the government insists that they were bought at Liverpool. If this be so, the information, as I have already said, does not charge this as the false statement, and the government cannot prevail.
Even if the information was sufficient, still the fact is that these goods were bought at Montreal. The cases cited by both parties show that where goods are sent, as these were sent, by a bill of lading indorsed to a third person as security for a draft, the property does not pass', at law, until the draft has been accepted or paid, or. there has been a waiver of acceptance or payment. Until one of these things is done, the goods cannot be attached as the property of the buyer; and if he should obtain possession of them, he cannot give a good title even to a bona fide purchaser. Dows v. Nat. Exch. Bank, 91 U. S. 618; Jenkins v. Brown, 14 Q. B. 496; Newcomb v. Boston & L. R. Co. 115 Mass. 230, and two cases immediately preceding and two following that case in the report; Shepherd v. Harrison, L. R. 4 Q. B. 197, 493; L. R. 5 H. L. 116; Benj. Sales, (2d Am. Ed.) § 399, and cases.
No doubt the buyer has an equitable title. If the bankers, for example, had sold the goods and indorsed the bill of lading to a stranger, Mooney might have recovered of them whatever the goods were worth above the original cost. But the legal title came to him in Montreal. Still further, the revenue laws, though liberally construed for the government, must be construed reasonably, and as an *646importer may be supposed to understand them. If the buyer, in a doubtful ease, should state the purchase either way, as having been made in Liverpool or in Montreal, he is not to lose his property, unless there is some scintilla of evidence that he made a willful misstatement with intent to defraud.
In this case there was no evidence tending in the slightest degree to prove fraud in any direct way. The United States endeavor to prove an actual intention to defraud them, without which no forfeiture can be imposed, (St. 1874, c. 891, § 16; 18 St. 189,) argumentatively, as thus: Liverpool was the true place of purchase; when, therefore, the claimant gave Montreal as the place, he must have had a motive; that motive must have been to deceive the appraisers by stating a particular purchase which they would take as evidence of market value. If this roundabout way of proving actual fraud, without any other single fact or circumstance corroborating that view of the transaction, were sufficient to establish a prima facie case, it would, of course, be competent to prove that the market price did not exceed 32 cent's at Montreal. But the judge ruled out evidence of this, and ordered a verdict,' very properly, because the fact as stated was true, and even if not, there was no reason to suppose that anything but a most natural mistake had been committed. Judgment affirmed.