Target Again Claims Products Such as String, Table Lights Are LED Lamps
Target General Merchandise said in a Feb. 20 response to a U.S. cross-motion for judgment in its classification case that it no longer will be disputing CBP’s classification of its artificial Christmas trees, explaining that the government is already arguing that the trees should be classified under a duty-free Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading (Target General Merchandise v. United States, CIT Consol. # 15-00069).
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But the company continued to disagree with the U.S. regarding the HTS classification of a number of its other entries. It moved for judgment in June, saying that its relevant models of LED candles, string lights, table lights, nightlights, path lights and lanterns should have been classified as LED lamps, not under various other subheadings (see 2406210041).
In its Feb. 20 reply, it pushed back against the U.S. claim that its preferred heading is intended for lightbulbs (see 2411120068). Heading 8539 is an eo nomine provision that, absent “contrary legislative intent,” must “be interpreted to include all forms of the named article,” it said.
It said the government wrongly relied on Gerson v. United States. The U.S. pointed out that, in that case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit had found heading 8539 to only cover light bulbs.
But Gerson was already before CIT when subheading 8539.50 was enacted, Target said. The new subheading “eliminate[d] the problems the Gerson court detected with regard to 8543.70.71” by including the term “lamps,” it claimed.
Target also argued its products, even though they aren’t “electric light bulbs,” are forms of LED lamps. The definitions of lamps cited by the government actually prove that, it said -- Merriam-Webster describes a lamp as “any of various devices for producing light,” which can include “a glass bulb or tube that emits light produced by electricity," while Cambridge Dictionary defines the products as “a device for giving light, especially one that has a covering or is contained within something.” Both of these definitions describe its products, the importer said.
It said that the U.S. Customs Court, the predecessor to the Court of International Trade, had explicitly found the provision was an eo nomine one and “noted that when Congress intended to provide for ‘light bulbs,’ as opposed to lamps, it knew how to do so.” If the legislature intended heading 8539 to be limited to light bulbs, in other words, it would have made that explicit in the tariff schedule’s language, Target claimed.
And it argued that lamps aren’t defined to include only light bulbs in other sections of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule. For example, subheading 8513.10.20 covers “lamps; flashlights,” while heading 9405 describes “lamps … including searchlights and spotlights.” This was even discussed in the recent case Trujicon Inc. v. United States, it said.
“It is well-established that the ‘Court presumes that the same words used twice in the same act have the same meaning,’” Target said.