Commercial Shearing & Stamping Co. v. United States

• Decision Date: 31 August 1972
• Docket Number: Customs Appeal 5428.
• Citation: 464 F.2d 1048,59 CCPA 203
• Parties: COMMERCIAL SHEARING & STAMPING COMPANY, Appellant, v. The UNITED STATES, Appellee, (Guadalupe Industrial Supply Company, Inc., Party-in-Interest.)
• Court: U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA)

59 CCPA 203, 464 F.2d 1048 (1972)

COMMERCIAL SHEARING & STAMPING COMPANY, Appellant, v. The UNITED STATES, Appellee, (Guadalupe Industrial Supply Company, Inc., Party-in-Interest.)

Customs Appeal 5428.

United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals.

August 31, 1972.

Eugene L. Stewart, Washington, D. C. (Lincoln & Stewart, Washington, D. C.), attorneys of record, for appellant; Matthew A. Kane, Washington, D. C. (Kane & Koons, Washington, D. C.), of counsel.

L. Patrick Gray, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., Andrew P. Vance, Chief, Customs Section, Joseph I. Liebman, New York City, for the United States.

George H. Spencer, San Antonio, Tex. (Clemens, Knights, Weiss & Spencer), San Antonio, Tex., Stephen H. Philbin, II, Dallas, Tex. (Locke Purnell, Boren, Laney & Neely), Dallas, Tex., for party-in-interest for appellee.

Before WORLEY, Chief Judge, and RICH, ALMOND, BALDWIN, and LANE, Judges.

LANE, Judge.

This appeal is by an American Manufacturer, plaintiff below, and is from the decision and judgment of the United States Customs Court, Third Division, 65 Cust.Ct. 91, C.D. 4060, 317 F.Supp. 750 (1970), holding that imported steel plates, pressed to a hemispherical shape, were properly classified by the collector as included in "angles, shapes, and sections," under item 609.80 of the Tariff Schedules of the United States (TSUS). Appellant claims that the hemispherical items should be classified as other articles of metal which are not more specifically provided for elsewhere in the tariff schedules under item 657.20. We affirm.

The schedules and headnotes involved read as follows:

Schedule 6, Part 2, Subpart B:

Subpart B headnotes:

1. This subpart covers iron and steel, their alloys, and their so-called basic shapes and forms, and in addition covers iron or steel waste and scrap.

* * * * * *

3. Forms and Conditions of Iron or Steel.—For the purposes of this subpart, the following terms have the meanings hereby assigned to them:

(a) Ingots: Castings resulting from the solidification of molten steel and having a columnar form suitable for working by rolling or forging.

(b) Blooms and billets: Semifinished products generally of rectangular or circular cross section, having a length several times greater than the maximum cross-sectional dimension, and if rectangular, a width less than 4 times the thickness. A bloom is at least 36 square inches in cross-sectional area; a billet is less than 36 square inches but not less than 3 square inches in cross-sectional area.

(c) Slabs and sheet bars: Semifinished products of rectangular cross section having a width of at least 4 times the thickness. A slab is not less than 2 inches and not over 6 inches in thickness; a sheet bar is less than 2 inches in thickness.

(d) Bars: Products of solid section not conforming completely to the respective specifications set forth herein for blooms, billets, slabs, sheet bars, wire rods, plates, sheets, strip, wire, rails, joint bars, or tie plates, and which have cross sections in the shape of circles, segments of circles, ovals, triangles, rectangles, hexagons, or octagons. Deformed concrete reinforcing bars are hot rolled steel bars, of solid cross section, having deformations of various patterns on their surfaces.

(e) Hollow drill steel: A hollow steel product in any cross section suitable for use in making mining drills or mining drill rods, with the largest internal cross-sectional dimension not greater than one-third of the largest external cross-sectional dimension.

(f) Wire rods: A coiled, semifinished, hot-rolled product of solid cross section, approximately round in cross section, not under 0.20 inch nor over 0.74 inch in diameter.

(g) Plates and sheets: Plates are flat rolled products whether or not corrugated or crimped, in coils or cut to length, 0.1875 inch or more in thickness and, if not cold rolled, over 8 inches in width, or if cold rolled, over 12 inches in width. Sheets are flat rolled products, whether or not corrugated or crimped, in coils or cut to length, under 0.1875 inch in thickness and over 12 inches in width. For the purposes of this subpart—

(i) the term "black plate" refers to cold rolled steel sheets, not coated, under 0.0142 inch in thickness;

(ii) the term "tin plate and tin coated sheets" refers to tin coated steel sheets; and

(iii) the term "terne plate and terne coated sheets" refers to steel sheets coated with terne metal (a lead-tin alloy).

(h) Strip: A flat rolled product, whether or not corrugated or crimped, in coils or cut to length, under 0.1875 inch in thickness, and if cold rolled, over 0.50 inch but not over 12 inches in width, or, if not cold rolled, not over 12 inches in width.

(i) Wire: A finished, drawn, non-tubular product, of any cross-sectional configuration, in coils or cut to length, and not over 0.703 inch in maximum cross-sectional dimension. The term also includes a product of solid rectangular cross section, in coils or cut to length, with a cold-rolled finish, and not over 0.25 inch thick and not over 0.50 inch wide.

(j) Angles, shapes, and sections: Products which do not conform completely to the respective specifications set forth herein for blooms, billets, slabs, sheet bars, bars, wire rods, plates, sheets, strip, wire, rails, joint bars, or tie plates, and do not include any tubular products.

(k) Rails: Hot-rolled steel products, weighing not less than 8 pounds per yard, with cross-sectional shapes intended for carrying wheel loads in railroad, railway, and crane runway applications. Rails may be punched or not punched.

(l) Joint bars: Hot-rolled steel products designed to connect the ends of adjacent rails in track. Joint bars are usually punched or slotted.

(m) Tie plates: Hot-rolled steel products used to support rails in track, to maintain track gauge and protect the ties. Tie plates are punched to provide holes for spikes and have one or two shoulder sections as rail guides.

* * * * * *

Tariff Item:

Angles, shapes, and sections, all the foregoing, of iron or steel, hot rolled, forged,

...