US Pushes Back Against Vehicle Side Bar Importer's Request for Reconsideration
Vehicle side bar importer Keystone Automotive Operations’ classification dispute shouldn’t be granted reconsideration after a Court of International Trade ruling went against it (see 2410070030), the U.S. said Jan. 15 (Keystone Automotive Operations v. United States, CIT # 21-00215).
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The importer argued before the court that its products are “side protective attachments” for vehicles, not “side steps,” but saw its case sent to a bench trial after Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves determined that a “side protective attachments” Section 301 provision was a principal use provision, but that there was not enough evidence on the record for her to rule whether Keystone’s products fell under it.
Keystone filed in November asking for reconsideration, saying it believed the court had misunderstood the question being litigated -- whether the Harmonized Tariff Schedule’s general and additional rules of interpretation applied at all, not whether Keystone’s preferred heading was an eo nomine or principal use provision (see 2411070028)
The U.S. called the motion an illegal attempt to relitigate, as it would be against the law “to classify a good in a primary HTSUS subheading using the traditional tools of statutory interpretation … and thereafter not apply the same standard to the exclusion itself that cites to that same HTSUS subheading.”
Because of that, the importer couldn’t point to “any ‘fundamental or significant flaw’ in the Court’s decision,” it said.
If the reconsideration attempt were to fail, Keystone asked the court in the alternative to grant it leave to seek interlocutory appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The U.S. pushed back against that request as well, saying requests for interlocutory appeals require a controlling question of pure law. Although Keystone’s argument “arguably involves” one, that argument “is so contrary to the established principles of statutory interpretation, it should not be viewed as controlling,” it said.