Hutchison Quality Furniture, Inc. v. United States

In 2007, Hutchison imported furniture from China through Orient International. The Commerce Department assigned Orient an antidumping duty margin of 216.01%. The Court of International Trade (CIT) entered an injunction and directed that the entries be liquidated “in accordance with the final court decision ... including all appeals.” In February 2013, CIT sustained Commerce’s remand redetermination, including a rate of 83.55%. Orient did not appeal; in June CIT ordered that Orient’s entries be liquidated in accordance with the February Final Judgment. In September, Customs liquidated the entries at 83.55%. Hutchison filed an unsuccessful protest with Customs under 19 U.S.C. 1514. In October 2014, Hutchison sought review under 28 U.S.C. 1581(i)(4), asserting that the entries should have been deemed liquidated at 7.24%, citing 19 U.S.C. 1504(d): “[w]hen a suspension required by statute or court order is removed, [Customs] shall liquidate the entry . . . within [six] months after receiving notice of the removal,” and, if the entry is not so liquidated, it shall be deemed "liquidated at the rate of duty, value, quantity, and amount of duty asserted by the importer” at the time of entry. Hutchison argued that Commerce’s liquidation instructions misidentified the date on which suspension of liquidation was lifted and that the suspension expired with the Final Judgment. CIT dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, stating that the “claim involves a protestable [Customs] decision,” which Hutchison could have appealed under 28 U.S.C. 1581(a) if its protest was denied. The Federal Circuit affirmed; regardless of whether the Final Judgment constituted a final court decision or constituted notice to Customs, starting the six-month period in 1504(d), a party may not invoke jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1581(i) when jurisdiction under another subsection could have been invoked. View "Hutchison Quality Furniture, Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law