US Defends Its Expert Witness' Testimony in Customs Suit on Incontinence Pants
The U.S. defended the expert testimony of its expert witness, Dr. Radhakrishnaiah Parachuru, in importer Viecura's customs suit on the classification of its pants designed to assist with incontinence. Filing a brief in opposition to Viecura's challenge to Parachuru's testimony on March 14, the government said the doctor has "specific and relevant experience with incontinence pants design" and based his testimony on reliable methodologies (Viecura v. United States, CIT # 21-00154).
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Viecura brought the case to claim its pants should fit under Harmonized Tariff Schedule duty-free subheading 9817.00.96 as "Articles specially designed or adapted for the use of and benefit of the blind and other physically or mentally handicapped persons" (see 2304140029). CBP classified the goods under subheading 6108.22.9020 as certain women's or girl's briefs or panties, dutiable at 15.6%.
To defend its classification of the products, the U.S. offered the testimony of Parachuru, which Viecura challenged. The importer said the witness lacked experience in "textile product design and manufacture" and "performed no testing or scientific study with respect to" the subject merchandise, instead basing his report on "visual observation and tactile handling of samples of the merchandise at bar, and other garments."
In response, the U.S. said Parachuru has "experience with incontinence pants design," making him "uniquely qualified to provide testimony on design solutions for incontinence as compared with designs that are common in regular commodity underwear."
The government also said Parachuru is an expert, noting that he has a bachelor’s degree and a master's degree in textile technology from the University of Madras, India, and a doctorate in textile engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India. He also teaches textile design in the U.S. at the Georgia Institute of Technology and has practical experience, including in the design of urinary incontinence pants. The pants he helped design had "no special features" and were meant to "hold internal urine collection bags through a system of internal pockets sewn into the shorts," the brief said.
Looking beyond Parachuru's experience, the U.S. added that the witness "described his methodologies, including the use of observation and tactile handling of fabrics and garments which he testified has formed the basis of comparison of garments for thousands of years."
Viecura faulted Parachuru for basing his opinion on only the "visual observation" of the pants, but the U.S. said visual observation and "tactile evaluation are a highly relevant methods of evaluation especially when looking for commonalities and differences between stretch-to-fit commodity underwear and what plaintiff calls a fixation pant product." In any event, Viecura's own witness, the company's president Donald Gallagher, also based part of his opinion on a visual comparison of the subject pants and seamless women's underwear, the government said.