HADDEN V. MERRITT
| Citation | 115 U. S. 25 |
| Decision Date | 04 May 1885 |
| Court | United States Supreme Court |
STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
The value of foreign coins, as ascertained by the estimate of the Director of the Mint, and proclaimed by the Secretary of the Treasury, is conclusive upon custom house officers and importers.
This was a suit to recover back duties alleged to have been illegally exacted. The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.
This was an action brought by plaintiffs in error against the
Collector of the Port of New York to recover an excess of duties, alleged to have been illegally exacted, and paid under protest. A verdict was returned for the defendant under instructions to that effect by the court, and judgment rendered accordingly. To this ruling of the court exceptions were duly taken, and it is now assigned for error.
The plaintiff's case was this:
In the year 1879, they imported from China several invoices of merchandise, subject to an ad valorem duty, the value of which was stated in the invoices in Mexican silver dollars, the currency of the country whence the goods were exported. In converting the value of the invoices, as expressed therein, from Mexican silver dollars into the value by which the actual ad valorem duty upon them was to be ascertained, the dutiable value was arrived at in each case by estimating the value of the Mexican dollar in accordance with the value of such coin as estimated by the director of the mint, and proclaimed by the Secretary of the Treasury on the first day of January of the year during which the importations were made, and the value of the Mexican dollar so ascertained, estimated, and proclaimed was .01 5/10, and duties were assessed upon the importations accordingly.
The plaintiff offered to prove that this valuation of the Mexican dollar, as estimated and proclaimed, was erroneous in this, to-wit, that it was based on the value of the Mexican dollar as compared with the silver dollar of the United States, whereas it ought by law to have been estimated and proclaimed by relation to the value of the gold dollar of the United States, and that this would have diminished the dutiable value of the goods imported by the difference between from 84 2/10 cents to 86 7/10 cents, and 101 5/10 cents, as the value of the Mexican dollar, varying according to the dates of the several importations, with the commercial difference in value between gold and silver. The evidence offered on this point was rejected, and the ruling of the court in its instruction to the jury to return a verdict for the defendant was based on the proposition that in assessing the duties collected on the value of the invoices reduced from Mexican silver dollars to the money of account of the United States, the collector and importer were concluded by
the estimate of the director of the mint, proclaimed by the Secretary of the Treasury, and then in force. In opposition to that, it is contended that such estimate is not conclusive in a case where it can be shown that it is based on the value of the foreign silver coin computed in terms of the silver dollar, instead of the gold dollar of the coinage of the United States, in violation, it is argued, of the statutory rule prescribed for making such estimate, which...
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