Ford Motor Co. v. United States

• Decision Date: 10 August 2012
• Docket Number: No. 2011–1134.,2011–1134.
• Citation: 688 F.3d 1319,34 ITRD 1853
• Parties: FORD MOTOR COMPANY, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Defendant–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Federal Circuit

688 F.3d 1319

34 ITRD 1853

FORD MOTOR COMPANY, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.UNITED STATES, Defendant–Appellee.

No. 2011–1134.

United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit.

Aug. 10, 2012.

Gregory G. Garre, Latham & Watkins, LLP, of Washington, DC, argued for plaintiff-appellant. On the brief was Matthew W. Caligur, Baker & Hostetler, LLP, of Houston, TX. Of counsel was Paulsen King Vandevert, Ford Motor Company, of Dearborn, MI.

Justin R. Miller, Trial Attorney, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, of

New York, NY, argued for defendant-appellee. With him on the brief were Tony West, Assistant Attorney General, Jeanne E. Davidson, Director, of Washington, DC; and Barbara S. Williams, Attorney in charge, of New York, NY. Of counsel on the brief was Yelena Slepak, Office of Assistant Chief Counsel, International Trade Litigation, United States Customs and Border Protection, of New York, NY.

Before RADER, Chief Judge, DYK and REYNA, Circuit Judges.

REYNA, Circuit Judge.

This case concerns the jurisdiction of the Court of International Trade to review U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (“CBP's”) assessments of duties on goods imported into the nation. The process for bringing such customs transactions to final resolution is called “liquidation.” 19 C.F.R. § 159.1. In this case, the importer filed for declaratory judgment that CBP had failed to liquidate in the time required by law. Its complaint asserted jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1581(i), the Tariff Act's grant of residual jurisdiction to the Court of International Trade over matters concerning enforcement and administration of, inter alia, duty assessment. We hold that this was a valid invocation of the court's residual jurisdiction, as the importer could not have asserted jurisdiction under any of the other enumerated provisions of § 1581. We further hold that post-complaint efforts by CBP to clear the importer's accounts did not undo such jurisdiction, and reverse the Court of International Trade's contrary order. We also reverse the Court of International Trade's finding that one of the importer's subsequent pleadings conceded a dispositive issue, which the court held made certain claims non-justiciable. Finally, we vacate the court's discretionary dismissal of the importer's remaining claims, concluding that that order was too interlinked with the jurisdiction and justiciability errors to survive appeal. See Ford Motor Co. v. United States, 716 F.Supp.2d 1302 (Ct. Int'l Trade 2010) [hereinafter Dismissal Opinion ].

I

As automotive enthusiasts will know, in 2004, Ford Motor Company (“Ford”), owned and operated the British car maker Jaguar. In 2004 and 2005, Ford imported Jaguar-brand cars from the United Kingdom into the United States. On the cars' entry into the United States, Ford deposited estimated duty payments with CBP. Ford subsequently concluded that its estimates were too high, and that it had overpaid on the duty actually owed.

Ford filed reconciliation entries with CBP, laying out its math and seeking a refund. This appeal concerns nine such entries, filed between August 2005 and October 2006. Ford hoped that CBP would review each entry, agree with the reasoning therein, and then liquidate the entry, upon which Ford would get a refund. The total refund claimed by Ford, across the nine disputed entries, was about $6.2 million.

For purposes of this short summary, it is not necessary to chart each entry's detailed progress through CBP's reconciliation apparatus. It is enough to fast-forward to April 15, 2009, and recount a few considerations as they appeared at that time, as it was on that date that Ford filed suit in this case.

It is undisputed that at the time of filing of Ford's complaint, CBP had not affirmatively liquidated any of the nine entries. It is also undisputed that the general one-year time period imposed by Congress for liquidating such entries had long since expired. See Tariff Act of 1930, § 504(a), 19 U.S.C. § 1504(a).

The third and final consideration comes from Ford's complaint. Ford alleged that, from the entries' filing until April 2009, CBP neither extended nor suspended the period available for liquidating the entries.2d Am. Compl. ¶¶ 67–68, Ford Motor Co. v. United States, No. 09–151 [hereinafter Ford ] (Ct. Int'l Trade Aug. 18, 2009), Dkt. # 19; Rockwell Int'l Corp. v. United States, 549 U.S. 457, 473–74, 127 S.Ct. 1397, 167 L.Ed.2d 190 (2007) (“When a plaintiff files a complaint in federal court and then voluntarily amends the complaint, courts look to the amended complaint to determine jurisdiction.”). It is not disputed that CBP has authority, in certain circumstances, to extend the time to liquidate entries by up to three years. See Tariff Act of 1930, § 504(b), 19 U.S.C. § 1504(b); see also19 C.F.R. § 159.12(a). But Ford said it received no notice of such an extension or suspension, and urged that notice was required for any putative extension to be effective. Because it viewed CBP as having exceeded the statutory deadline, in April 2009 Ford believed it was entitled to have the entries liquidated and the refunds paid to it. It therefore sought declaratory judgment deeming the nine entries liquidated by operation of law and ordering CBP to pay Ford the claimed refunds.

A few months after initiation of the lawsuit, there was new action from CBP. In June–August of 2009 CBP's computer system “auto-liquidated” three of the disputed entries. By the end of September, CBP had “reliquidated” them, which concluded the reconciliation process. Appellee Br. 7 & n. 6. Ford administratively protested each of these acts before CBP and, when its protests were denied, initiated separate litigation before the Court of International Trade to appeal the denials. Then, in mid–2010, CBP announced that it had liquidated a fourth entry and that its computer system had auto-liquidated a fifth, which was scheduled to be “reliquidated” by CBP later in the year.

In light of this post-complaint activity, and pursuant to a motion from the government, the Court of International Trade dismissed Ford's case in its entirety. Dismissal Op. The court's opinion contained three holdings relevant to this appeal. First, the court held that CBP's post-complaint activity stripped the court of subject matter jurisdiction as to the affected entries. Id. at 1310–11. Second, the court found that in a recent filing Ford conceded that CBP had extended the time for liquidation of five of the nine entries, so the court ruled that no case or controversy remained as to Ford's claims that there had been no extension. Id. Third, the court acknowledged that there remained four non-liquidated entries for which Ford continued to argue that CBP had acted unlawfully. The court concluded that it had subject matter jurisdiction over the case as to those claims, and that Ford had made no dispositive concessions, but declined to issue declaratory judgment. Id. at 1313–14, 1315 (diagramming holding).

Ford timely appealed. This court has jurisdiction over final judgments of the Court of International Trade. 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(5).

II

This court reviews the Court of International Trade's dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction de novo. Heartland By–Prods., Inc. v. United States, 424 F.3d 1244, 1250 (Fed.Cir.2005). This court also reviews dismissals for non-justiciability de novo. King Pharms., Inc. v. Eon Labs, Inc., 616 F.3d 1267, 1282 (Fed.Cir.2010).

III

A

The first question presented by this appeal is whether the Court of International Trade correctly applied its own jurisdictional statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1581, and the precedent of this court to Ford's case. We are specifically concerned with the interactions between the enumerated grants of jurisdiction set forth in subsections (a) through (h) of this statute and the grant of residual jurisdiction in subsection (i). It is the residual grant of subsection (i)(4) that Ford contends covers this case:

(i) In addition to the jurisdiction conferred upon the Court of International Trade by subsections (a)–(h) of this section and subject to the exception set forth in subsection (j) of this section, the Court of International Trade shall have exclusive jurisdiction of any civil action commenced against the United States, its agencies, or its officers, that arises out of any law of the United States providing for—

(1) revenue from imports or tonnage;

(2) tariffs, duties, fees, or other taxes on the importation of merchandise for reasons other than the raising of revenue;

(3) embargoes or other quantitative restrictions on the importation of merchandise for reasons other than the protection of the public health or safety; or

(4) administration and enforcement with respect to the matters referred to in paragraphs (1)–(3) of this subsection and subsections (a)–(h) of this section.

28 U.S.C. § 1581(i).

This court has on several occasions considered subsection (i)(4)'s jurisdictional implications. Recognizing that litigants might be tempted to use subsection (i)(4)'s broad language to avoid various requirements of subsections (a) through (h), this court has repeatedly held that subsection (i)(4) “may not be invoked when jurisdiction under another subsection of § 1581 is or could have been available, unless the remedy provided under that other subsection would be manifestly inadequate.” Miller & Co. v. United States, 824 F.2d 961, 963 (Fed.Cir.1987); see also Int'l Custom Prods., Inc. v. United States, 467 F.3d 1324, 1327 (Fed.Cir.2006); Norcal/Crosetti Foods, Inc. v. United States, 963 F.2d 356, 359 (Fed.Cir.1992).

The government asks this court to simply apply those cases to this, and thus to affirm. The government argues now that since CBP has fully liquidated some of the entries, Ford can—and in fact did—dispute those liquidations administratively and, failing that, could (and did) bring a separate lawsuit under the jurisdiction enumerated in 28 U.S.C. § 1581(a) (...