F. Vitelli & Son v. United States

Citations

• 250 U.S. 355
• 39 S. Ct. 544
• 63 L. Ed. 1028
• 1919 U.S. LEXIS 1754

Syllabus

<p>The Act of June 22, 1874, 18 Stat. 190, § 21, provides that whenever duties have been liquidated and paid and the goods delivered, the . entry and settlement shall, after one year from the time of entry, in the absence of fraud and of protest by the owner, etc., be final and conclusive upon all parties. Held, that the purpose was to limit the right to reliquidate, in the interest of the citizen and the security of commercial transactions; and where the collector reliquidates on the ground of fraud, it cannot be presumed that his action was correct so as to cast the onus of disproving fraud upon the importer. P. 357.</p> <p>The fact that .the importer, instead of awaiting suit by the United States, becomes the actor by paying under protest and appealing to the Board of General Appraisers, does not require him to assume the burden of disproving the fraud. P. 358.</p> <p>The Court of Customs Appeals having erroneously assumed, in sustaining a reliquidation based on fraud, that the collector’s action was presumptively correct, and cast the burden of disproving fraud upon the importers, held that the case must be remanded to be tried anew by the Board of General Appraisers, without inquiry by this court into the adequacy of the evidence of fraud in the present record. -P. 359.</p>