Macy v. Browne
| Decision Date | 08 June 1915 |
| Docket Number | 158. |
| Citation | 224 F. 359 |
| Parties | MACY et al. v. BROWNE et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
This cause comes here upon appeal from a decree of the District Court, Southern District of New York, dismissing the bill. Complainants are importers of tea. Respondents, United States General Appraisers, are members of the appellate board created under the act of March 2, 1897 (as amended May 16 1908), known as the Tea Law, to re-examine teas already examined by tea examiners appointed under the same act. The function of these examiners and re-examiners is to determine whether or not teas offered for import comply with the requirements, imposed by the Tea Law for admission into the United States.
The act is entitled 'An act to prevent the importation of impure and unwholesome teas. ' Its first section makes it unlawful 'to import or bring into the United States any merchandise as tea, which is inferior in purity, quality and fitness for consumption to the standards provided in section 3 of this act. ' The third section provides that the Secretary of the Treasury, upon recommendation of the board shall fix and establish uniform standards of purity, quality and fitness for consumption of all kinds of tea imported, and shall procure and deposit in certain custom houses duplicate samples of such standards, in sufficient number to supply the importers and dealers in tea at all ports desiring the same at cost. All teas, or merchandise described as tea, 'of inferior purity, quality and fitness for consumption to such standards,' are declared to be within the prohibition of the first section. Details as to examination and re-examination are provided for, the seventh section concluding with the statement: 'That in all cases of examination and re-examination of teas, or merchandise described as tea, by examiners or Boards of United States General Appraisers under the provisions of this act, the purity, quality, and fitness for consumption of the same shall be tested according to the usages and customs of the tea trade, including the testing of an infusion of the same in boiling water, and, if necessary, by chemical analysis.'
The standards have been duly established and duplicate samples deposited in the custom houses. Certain green teas of complainants were offered by them for import, were rejected by the examiner, and are now before respondents for re-examination. The contention of complainants is that respondents threaten, upon such re-examination, to adopt a method of examination and to apply a criterion for judging the admissibility of the teas, neither of which is authorized by the Tea Act.
Section 10 gave to the Secretary of the Treasury 'power to enforce the provisions of this act by appropriate regulations. ' He has prescribed a code of regulations to two of which, Nos. 22 and 23, complainants take exception. They provide for what is called the 'Read test,' to determine whether the tea being examined contains 'artificial coloring or facing matter.' They further provide that 'as soon as coloring or facing matter is identified, then the tea should be rejected,' but 'if the tea is clearly equal to the standard as regards coloring or facing matter' apparently it is not to be rejected. In other words, if the standard of a particular kind or grade of tea contains no coloring or facing matter, offered tea which contains any coloring or facing matter, however small in quantity, must be rejected. If the standard contains some such coloring or facing matter, all tea which contains such matter in excess of the standard must be rejected. The examiner rejected complainant's teas 'for color; that is to say, on the ground that they were inferior in purity to said standards established as aforesaid, by reason of the alleged inclusion therein of certain coloring matter.'
The opinion of Judge Hough will be found in 215 F. 456.
Evarts, Choate & Sherman, of New York City (J. H. Choate, Jr., of New York City, of counsel), for appellants.
W. L. Wemple, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., of New York City, for appellees.
Before LACOMBE, COXE, and WARD, Circuit Judges.
Much testimony was taken, and the District Court found that when complainants offered their tea for entry the standard samples contained no coloring matter whatever, but did contain a far greater amount of other foreign substances than did complainants'; that the tea refused entry is worth in the open market nearly four times as much per pound as is the standard sample by which its acceptance or rejection was gauged; that the sole cause for rejecting the tea in question is that it showed coloring matter, to wit, Prussian blue, in proportion ranging from 9 to 19 parts of blue in a million...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Laramie Irrigation & Power Co. v. Grant
... ... 261; State v. Gibbs, 13 Fla. 55, 7 Am. R. 233; ... Dickey v. Reed, 76 Ill. 261; Staple v. State, ... (Tex.) 244 S.W. 1068; Waite v. Macy, 246 U.S ... 606, 62 L.Ed. 892; Louisiana v. McAdoo, 234 U.S ... 627, 58 L.Ed. 1506; New Orleans v. Paine, 147 U.S ... 261, 37 L.Ed. 162; ... ...
-
Page v. Arkansas Natural Gas Corporation
...controlled, and its affairs are so conducted, as to make it merely an instrumentality or adjunct of another corporation." Macy v. Browne (C. C. A.) 224 F. 359, 363; Majestic Co. v. Orpheum Circuit (C. C. A.) 21 F.(2d) 720; Hamilton Ridge Lumber Sales Corp. v. Wilson et al. (C. C. A.) 25 F.(......
-
Commercial Solvents Corp. v. Mellon, 3738.
...and in no sense deleterious to health, the Secretary of the Treasury acted outside of his jurisdiction in denying it importation. 224 F. 359, 140 C.C.A. 45. The case to the Supreme Court of the United States under the name of Waite v. Macy, supra, and was there affirmed, the court saying: '......