Goat Sheepskin Import Company v. United States/Opinion of the Court

United States Supreme Court

206 U.S. 194

Goat Sheepskin Import Company  v.  United States

 Argued: April 18, 1907. --- Decided: May 13, 1907

The evidence in this case, taken before the board of appraisers and also before the circuit court, is uncontradicted. It shows that the substance in question is not wool, has none of its characteristics, and is not put to any of its uses, and does not appear like wool. On the contrary, it is composed mostly of dead hair or kemp and cannot be remuneratively carded, nor is it commercially suited for carding, nor for spinning. Its commercial designation is Mocha hair, and it is not known or regarded or recognized as wool in any of the markets of the country.

It is not denied that the commercial designation of an article, which designation was known at the time of the passage of a tariff act, is the name by which the article should be classified for the payment of duty, and, as is stated, 'without regard to their scientific designation and material of which they may be made, or the use to which they may be applied.' Two Hundred Chests of Tea, 9 Wheat. 430, 438, 6 L. ed. 128, 130; Arthur v. Morrison, 96 U.S. 108, 24 L. ed. 764; American Net & Twine Co. v. Worthington, 141 U.S. 468, 35 L. ed. 821, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 55; Hedden v. Richard, 149 U.S. 346, 348, 37 L. ed. 763, 764, 13 Sup. Ct. Rep. 891. As was said by Mr. Justice Story in Two Hundred Chests of Tea, supra, Congress did not 'suppose our merchants to be naturalists or geologists or botanists. It applied its attention to the description of articles as they derived their appellantions in our own markets, in our domestic as well as our foreign traffic.' And in Hedden v. Richard, supra, it was said: 'The language of commerce . . . must be construed, . . . particularly when employed in the denomination of articles, according to the commercial understanding of the terms used.' The commercial designation should prevail unless Congress has clearly manifested a contrary intention. Cadwalader v. Zeh, 151 U.S. 171, 176, 38 L. ed. 115, 117, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 288.

We are of opinion that the use of the word 'wool' in the tariff act excluded a substance which, while it was a growth upon a sheepskin, was nevertheless commercially known, designated, and dealt in as Mocha hair, having none of the characteristics of wool, and which would not be accepted by dealers therein as a good delivery of wool.

In this case the evidence is uncontradicted that the growth on these skins was commercially known as Mocha hair, and that it was not used in the way wool is used, or as a substitute for wool. It ought not, simply for the reason that the skin upon which it grows is the skin of a sheep, to be classified as wool, under paragraph 360 of the tariff act, and thereby be subjected to a duty as high as the value of the substance itself.

Although it has been so classified, and that classification has been affirmed all through, yet the question is not presented to this court as if it were a question of fact decided upon contradictory evidence, and concluding this court for that reason. There is, in truth, no contradictory evidence in the case. It is one where, in our opinion, the courts below have given undue weight to the evidence elicited on cross-examination of witnesses called on the part of the importer, which showed that there possibly was, in some cases, a very little inferior wool found on these skins, while the courts ignored the other facts, as testified to by the same witnesses and already mentioned, which showed beyond the possibility of successful contradiction that the substance was erroneously classified as wool.

Upon the facts, the substance ought not to have been so classified. The growth being still on the skin should have been regarded as part of such skin, and classified under paragraph 664, in the free list, and not as a sheepskin with the wool on.

We do not agree that the word 'wool' in this act is used in a generic sense so far as this particular point is concerned. The word does not necessarily include all growth upon the coat of a sheep, even though the substance is like that in question here.

Counsel for the government cites from the Encyclopedia Britannica, where, in speaking of the difficulty in determining the dividing line between hair and wool, it is said: 'At what point, indeed, it can be said that an animal fiber ceases to be hair and becomes wool it is impossible to determine, because in every characteristic the one class by imperceptible gradations merges into the other, so that a continuous chain can be formed from the finest and softest merino to the rigid bristles of the wild boar.'

It may be difficult in some cases to define the line between 'wool' and 'hair' as a growth upon skins, but we do not regard that difficulty as an argument for the construction contended for by counsel for the government. That argument leads to the classification of a substance like that in question as wool, when in fact it bears no resemblance to it, is not used as wool, and has none of its characteristics, and is known commercially as Mocha hair, and is so bought and sold over the whole country. The case is one of degree; and because, in some few cases, the points may closely approach each other, and there may be, in such cases, some difficulty in telling wool from hair, yet that fact furnishes no reason for refusing to adopt the general test which, in most cases, is easily applied,-fitness, identity of use, commercial designation. To adopt the claim of counsel eliminates all inquiry as to whether an article is wool or hair, and leaves simply the question whether it is to be found on what may be called the wool-bearing animals or on the alpaca or other like hair-coated animals. Some sheep are wool-bearing animals; therefore the hair on the skin of the Mocha sheep is wool and must be classified as such. We do not agree with this claim. If an article does not, to a dealer, look like wool, cannot be used as wool, is not commercially known as wool, but, on the contrary, is bought and sold throughout the country as Mocha hair, and is so designated commercially by those dealing in it, it ought not to be classified as wool or made to pay duty as such, simply because it grows on a sheep.

We have looked over the various authorities cited by counsel for the government, but we see nothing in any of them tending to the conclusion that, upon the facts in this case, the growth on the skin of the Mocha sheep was properly classified as wool.

Taking all the evidence in this case, uncontradicted as it is, we feel compelled to the conclusion that the classification in this case, adopted by the courts below and by the appraisers and collector, was wrong, and that the merchandise in question was entitled to free entry.

The judgments of the courts below are reversed and the case remanded to the Circuit Court with instructions to take such further proceedings as may be necessary, not inconsistent with this opinion.

Reversed.

Mr. Justice Moody took no part in the decision of this case.

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