RUBBERSET COMPANY v. United States

• Decision Date: 09 May 1972
• Docket Number: C.R.D. 72-9,Protest No. 70/56362.
• Citation: 342 F. Supp. 749
• Parties: The RUBBERSET COMPANY and The Sherwin-Williams Company v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA)

342 F. Supp. 749

The RUBBERSET COMPANY and The Sherwin-Williams Company v. UNITED STATES.

C.R.D. 72-9; Protest No. 70/56362.

United States Customs Court.

May 9, 1972.

Barnes, Richardson & Colburn, New York City (Rufus E. Jarman, Jr., New York City, of counsel), for plaintiffs.

L. Patrick Gray, III, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Martin Kirshner, Dept. of Justice, New York City, trial atty.), for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

WATSON, Judge:

Defendant has moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a cause of action, a motion not specifically set out in the rules of this court but one I would not hesitate to entertain and grant pursuant to Rule 1.1(b)¹ if the circumstances so required.

Plaintiffs are seeking relief pursuant to item 807.00 of the Tariff Schedules of the United States,² thus claiming in effect that the value of certain components made in the United States should be deducted from the dutiable value of the importation. The specific shortcoming claimed by defendant is a failure by plaintiffs to allege in the complaint that they have complied with the customs regulations which are a prelude to the tariff treatment they desire.³

I am of the opinion, for the reasons set out below, that defendant's motion should be denied on the ground plaintiffs have successfully stated a claim for which relief may be granted.⁴

This happens to be one of a diminishing number of actions which was received by the court in protest form prior to October 1, 1970, the effective date both of the Customs Courts Act of 1970, Pub.L. 91-271, and the present court rules. In accordance with Rule 14.9(d) such actions are deemed to have had summonses timely and properly filed.

Since no summons was actually filed, I must look to the complaint for the adequacy of the claim. The basic claim is contained in the first portion of the complaint up to and including paragraph 7. This, together with certain information from the protest, to which the indicated circumstances require reference, identifies the importation, its tariff treatment, the unsuccessful attempts to change that treatment at the administrative level and the tariff treatment desired. This information comprises an adequate statement of a claim for relief.

Lest my examination of the complaint for the adequacy of the statement of a claim give rise to a misconception of my views, I must make the following clarification. Ordinarily, the claim will be stated in the summons and will consist of exactly those elements I have, in this instance, extracted from the complaint and protest. So long as the summons is complete, a proper claim for relief has been made, the action has been "stated" and remains viable.

An action, as embodied in the summons may be submitted for judgment⁵ or otherwise disposed of,⁶ such as through consolidation or suspension, without a complaint ever being filed. The dismissal of a complaint qua complaint, cannot terminate the action in this court, as long as it has been perfected in a summons. If an action therefore remains "alive" without a complaint or even after the complaint has been dismissed that must mean the "cause of action" or "claim" or whatever we wish to call the quintessential legal core is not contained in the complaint. It follows, then, that our summons is a document which most resembles a complaint in other federal courts.

It is a source of regret to me that its true nature has been obscured by the name "summons."⁷ Admittedly it has the distinguishing characteristic of allowing an action to remain dormant for reasons peculiar to this practice.⁸ Perhaps it was the strained analogy between this potential state of dormancy and the absence of legal content in the ordinary summonses in other courts which led to the use of the title "summons." Be that as it may the summons in this court, in addition to its usual role of giving notice to the defendant of the pendency of an action, has palpable legal content as the vehicle by which an action is commenced. In sum, what has emerged from the statutory requirement that an action in this court be commenced by the filing of a summons⁹ and the content required therein by the rules of the court¹⁰ is a document which is in all respects at least the equal of a summons and complaint in any other court. In my opinion it was intended to serve the role of a complaint with the one special characteristic of permitting the action to remain quiescent.¹¹

The "complaint" in this court differs completely from the complaint in other federal courts. It is more in the nature of a notice of intention to proceed to litigation combined with a modified bill of particulars. It is a document designed to rouse an action from hibernation by reiterating the basic claim, providing a somewhat more explicit statement of that claim, triggering defendant's obligation to answer and setting in motion the disposition of the action. It is manifestly not the document which first commences the action, tolls the statute of limitations and states the claim. Hence it will be inappropriate to attack the complaint for failure to perform a task for which it is not intended and upon the performance of which the existence of the action does not depend. Only in the remaining "summonsless" cases can such attacks be made and even then only on grounds which would constitute deficiencies in the statement of a claim in the summons.

I wish, nevertheless, to raise on my own the question of whether plaintiff must supply the allegation of compliance with customs regulations, not to state a claim, but simply to conform to the requirement of Rule 4.5(c) (3) that the complaint set forth "concise allegations of plaintiff's contentions of fact and law in support of the claim." This would be the question raised had defendant made what I feel is the only correct motion in these circumstances; a motion to compel plaintiff to comply with Rule 4.5(c) (3).

I am convinced this rule does not require a detailed elaboration of plaintiff's case and certainly does not demand a step by step outline of plaintiff's theory and proof. Such detail as defendant demands is properly obtainable by the generous methods of discovery provided for in the rules.¹²

In addition, requiring such detail would be entirely at variance with the tendency of modern federal procedure to eliminate such requirements and rid the courts of the insuperable and unproductive disputes which detailed pleadings engendered.¹³

It would be ironic if this court, at the very moment when it is benefiting from the modernizing effect of new legislation and endeavoring to fashion efficient and expeditious procedures, became caught in the morass of motions directed to the sufficiency of pleadings from which other federal courts have recently escaped.¹⁴ We would then find ourselves excessively occupied in the perfection...