Importer Says No Rehearing Necessary Because CIT Didn't Err in GRI Application
Importer Honeywell pushed back April 4 against a U.S. motion for rehearing after the Court of International Trade sided with it to find its precut radial, chordial and web fabric pieces, used in airplane brakes, were “parts of an aircraft” rather than “fabrics” (see 2501300051). The trade court hadn't misapplied the Harmonized Tariff Schedule's General Rules of Interpretation, it said (Honeywell International Inc. v. U.S., CIT # 17-00256).
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The government said in a Feb. 28 motion (see 2503030041) that CIT had agreed that Honeywell’s products were prima facie fabrics under GRI 1, but based its ruling that they were ultimately classifiable as airplane parts on GRI 3. It said the court skipped over GRI 2(a) because it wrongly inferred the rule doesn’t apply to parts.
GRI 2(a) holds that tariff terms apply to unfinished or incomplete articles with the same essential character as finished products. If applied, the U.S. argued, CIT would have found Honeywell’s precut fabric pieces don’t share the same essential characteristics as finished brake discs, and it would have ultimately classified them as “fabrics” under HTS heading 6307 instead.
Calling this “nothing more than an effort to re-litigate arguments that the Court has already rejected,” Honeywell said CIT hadn’t needed to reach GRI 2(a) because it made its decision under GRI 1.
The trade court, the importer said, had acknowledged that the brake segments were prima facie classifiable under both heading 6307, for fabrics, and heading 8803, for aircraft parts. Under GRI 1, the court then chose heading 8803 over heading 6307 because the former is more specific and the latter is a basket provision, Honeywell said.
During that analysis, the court considered the government’s argument that Honeywell’s imports were only raw materials, not parts, of brakes. It disagreed, finding that the imports were parts of airplane brakes, or, in other words, parts of parts of aircraft. This was part of the CIT’s GRI 1 determination, Honeywell said.
“The Court ... did not base its decision on ‘a GRI 3(a) relative specificity analysis,’ such that a GRI 2(a) analysis would have been a necessary condition precedent, as Defendant suggests,” it said. “Rather, the Court’s specificity analysis was predicated, in part, on GRI 1 in the same way that this Court has engaged in an ‘essential character’ analysis -- a concept rooted in GRI 3(b) -- pursuant to GRI 1.”
And Honeywell called the U.S.’s claim that the trade court hadn’t addressed its GRI 2(a) argument a “blatant mischaracterization” of the court’s holding. CIT did consider it, but rejected it, saying that “[b]ecause the court finds that the segments satisfy the parts test, the court does not address the unfinished parts arguments or whether GRI 2(a) applies to a subpart analysis,” the importer said.