Court Opinion

ID: 8851986
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 17:16:53.925312+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:05:31.810671
License: Public Domain

COXE, District Judge
(orally). It seems to me that the proposition that a fabric made on a loom with a Jacquard attachment is not embroiderv, has been determined by the circuit court of appeals. U. S. v. Albert, 9 C. C. A. 332, 60 Fed. 1012. How can a machine that is incapable of embroidering dots, sprays, etc., embroider the figures appearing on the article in suit? I do not see how I can say that the same machine which the court has held cannot embroider, can embroider. The two cases cannot be distinguished. It is clear, in view of this decision, that the court, cannot say that a fabric made in this way is embroidered. It would create an unfortunate conflict of authority to hold in one case that a machine can embroider when in another case it is held that the same machine cannot embroider. The circuit court of appeals having deidded that a loom with a Jacquard attachment cannot do embroidery work the only remaining question is whether or not a trade-name has been established by the respondent. Upon that proposition it is conceded, as I understand it, that the question is in doubt, with a larger number of witnesses testifying against the contention of the collector than supporting it. The fact that a trade-name has not been established by either side compels the court to determine what in fact the article is, whether it is in fact embroidered. As to that proposition I have no doubt. There is no evidence that the loom described can do embroidery work, and as I recall the testimony it is well-nigh unanimous that the machine cannot do embroidery work. In fact I could go further and say, if I were called upon to decide, on this evidence, what the trade-name was in this market on October 1, 1890, that this importation was not known in trade and commerce as “embroidery” or as an “article of wearing apparel embroidered by hand or machine,” under paragraph 373 of the tariff act of 1890. I think the decision of the board of general appraisers, so far as it relates to the question discussed, should be reversed.