Court Opinion

ID: 9431228
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:31:40.424103+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:28.855856
License: Public Domain

Justice Scalia,
with whom
The Chief Justice and Justice O’Connor join, dissenting.
In a Court that selects its docketed cases on the basis of the general importance of the issues they present, jurisdictional questions tend to get short shrift. The central issue in this suit, the so-called “gray-market” issue, which may have immediate and substantial effects on the national economy, has provoked no less than 15 amici briefs; while the jurisdictional question, which could have the undesirable consequence of preventing our immediate resolution of the merits, has been briefed in only 11 pages by petitioners and 6 pages by respondents. Understandably enough, no one, myself included, is eager to conclude that we are powerless to resolve the issue that is this suit’s claim to national attention.
Even so, we must carefully review any question that asks us to determine the limits of a federal court’s power, particularly when, as in this suit, two different sets of courts have concluded that they have exclusive jurisdiction over the subject of the suit. Compare Vivitar Corp. v. United States, 761 F. 2d 1552, 1557-1560 (CA Fed. 1985), cert. denied, 474 U. S. 1055 (1986); with cases below, 252 U. S. App. D. C. 342, 344-346, 790 F. 2d 903, 905-907 (1986); and Olympus Corp. v. United States, 792 F. 2d 315, 317-319 (CA2 1986). Moreover, while the gray-market question is of greater im*192mediate economic importance (though we would soon enough have another occasion to address it), the jurisdictional question, if decided incorrectly, may generate uncertainty and hence litigation into the indefinite future. In my view, the Court’s resolution of this question strains the plain language of the statute, and blurs a clear jurisdictional line that Congress has established.
The Court of International Trade’s exclusive jurisdiction extends to any civil action against the United States, its agencies or officers, “that arises out of any law of the United States providing for . . . embargoes or other quantitative restrictions on the importation of merchandise for reasons other than the protection of the public health or safety.” 28 U. S. C. § 1581(i)(3). The statute does not define “embargo,” and there is no reason to give it anything other than its ordinary meaning. An embargo is “a prohibition imposed by law upon commerce either in general or in one or more of its branches,” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 738 (1981), a “[gjovernment order prohibiting commercial trade with individuals or businesses of other nations,” Black’s Law Dictionary 468 (5th ed. 1979), an “[authoritative stoppage of foreign commerce or of any special trade,” Funk & Wagnalls New International Dictionary of the English Language 411 (1984).
The present lawsuit challenges a Customs Service regulation, 19 CFR § 133.21(c) (1987), that implements § 526(a) of the Tariff Act of 1930, 19 U. S. C. § 1526(a). That statutory provision, which begins with the caption “(a) Importation prohibited,” excludes from the United States foreign-made merchandise bearing a trademark owned and recorded by a United States citizen or corporation. Section 526(a) is, to borrow language from the Senate debate, “an embargo against any foreign country shipping goods here where an American claims he has a trade-mark upon them.” 62 Cong. Rec. 11603 (1922) (remarks of Sen. Kellogg) (emphasis added). Because this suit against the United States arises out of a law pro vid*193ing for an embargo, I would hold that it is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of International Trade.
The Court acknowledges that the term “embargo” means a “governmentally imposed” import prohibition, ante, at 185, but it seems to me that its analysis departs from that truth. Surely § 526(a) prohibits imports, and that prohibition, enacted by Congress and enforced by an executive agency, is surely governmentally imposed. One might argue that the privately invocable exception to § 526(a) causes it not to be an absolute governmental prohibition, and that only absolute governmental prohibitions qualify as embargoes. The Court rightly avoids that line of analysis, however, since many of the provisions commonly regarded as embargoes contain privately invocable exceptions, such as exemptions for certain privately determined uses. See, e. g., 19 U. S. C. A. § 1202, p. 265, Schedule 1, Part 4, Subpart E; 19 CFR §§ 12.80(b)(v), (vi) (1987). But if, despite its privately invocable exception, § 526(a) meets the requirement of being a prohibition, it unquestionably meets the requirement of being a govern-mentally imposed one. Here, as with other embargoes, the availability of a privately invocable exception affects the extent of the prohibition; but the residual prohibition, whatever its extent, is governmental.
The Court seeks to set § 526(a) apart from other embargoes with privately invocable exceptions by observing that “rather than reflecting a governmental restriction on the quantity of a particular product that will enter, it merely provides a mechanism by which a private party might, at its own option, enlist the Government’s aid in restricting the quantity of imports in order to enforce a private right.” Ante, at 185. Perhaps it is meant to provide such a mechanism, but that relates not to whether it is a governmental prohibition, but to what the purpose of the governmental prohibition happens to be. It is no more in accord with common usage to say that a provision cannot be an embargo if its purpose is to protect private rights than to say (as did the Court of Appeals in the *194analysis that the Court readily rejects, ibid., that it cannot be an embargo if its purpose is something other than trade policy. Embargoes are imposed for many different purposes, including sometimes the protection of private rights. Assuredly those which have the latter purpose are different from those that do not, but it is beyond me why that purpose, any more than any other one, would cause them not to be govern-mentally imposed import prohibitions. In my view, for example, the prohibition on the importation of art stolen from a private nonprofit museum, see 19 CFR §§ 12.104-12.104h (1987), is unquestionably an embargo. Moreover, since the lever that the Court is using for its analysis is the prohibition’s asserted lack of “governmental” character, it should make no difference whether the objective of the prohibition is to protect a private “right,” or to protect some other private interest, or the interest of some wowprivate entity other than the Government itself. Thus, on the Court’s analysis there would be excluded from the term “embargo” the prohibition on importing pre-Columbian sculptures or murals, which does not apply if the importer produces a certificate issued by the country of origin stating that the goods were not unlawfully exported. 19 U. S. C. § 2092; 19 CFR § 12.107 (1987). This is simply not in accord with normal understanding.
The Court seeks to establish the inherently “nonembargo” character of a prohibition protecting private property rights by noting that a court injunction enforcing a contractual import prohibition is not an embargo. Ante, at 185. I agree that an injunction is not an embargo, but that conclusion does not follow from the fact that the injunction issued at the instance of a private individual to protect property rights. A court injunction issued at the instance of a Government agency, to prevent importation that was part of a conspiracy in violation of the Sherman Act, would likewise not generally be thought of as an embargo — because the word is normally applied only to prohibitions imposed by the Legislative or Executive Branches of Government.
*195The short of the matter is that an “embargo” is an import regulation that takes the form of a governmental prohibition on imports, regardless of any exceptions it may contain and regardless of its ultimate purpose — just as quotas, tariffs, and conditions on importation are identifiable forms of import regulation regardless of their exceptions and purposes. The Court points out, ante, at 187, that it may sometimes be difficult to distinguish a condition on importation from a prohibition on importation containing exceptions. That may be true, but since we are agreed that only prohibitions and not conditions come within the meaning of embargo, that ambiguity will have to be grappled with under the Court’s view of things no less than under mine. It is irrelevant to the present issue, unless the existence of one ambiguity within a statute justifies the needless creation of another. Under my analysis, when a provision has been identified as an import prohibition (however difficult that may be — and it is neither difficult nor contested here) that is an end of the matter. Under the Court’s analysis, one must proceed further to examine the exceptions to the prohibition and its purpose.
Today’s decision leaves some doubt as to what prohibitions on importation other than § 526(a) are not governmental, and hence not embargoes, because they benefit private parties and are avoidable by private consent. Even if the Court’s holding can be limited to prohibitions that protect private “rights,” then at least the status of the prohibitions on the importation of goods that infringe trademarks or copyrights is called into question. See 15 U. S. C. § 1124; 17 U. S. C. §§ 601-603. And since, as noted earlier, the purpose of protecting private “rights” (whatever that might mean) is logically no more invalidating than the purpose of protecting private “interests,” or even, more broadly, nongovernmental interests, the status of other import prohibitions is cast in doubt as well.
These uncertainties arise from today’s particular departure from the meaning of “embargo” as “a governmental prohi*196bition on importation.” Much greater, unfortunately, are the uncertainties that arise from today’s acknowledgment of the principle that departure is permissible. Having cast § 526(a) loose from the moorings of its language, we leave it to drift on the currents of lawyerly invention. It remains to be seen what other limitations on the ordinary meaning of “embargo,” no more apparent to the naked mind than the present one, may exist.