Chew Hing Lung v. Wise

Background

A group of importers brought bags of tapioca flour into San Francisco in November 1893. The customs collector charged a two‑cent-per-pound duty treating the product as starch. The importers said the product was tapioca (one of three commercial forms: pearl, flake, and flour) and should enter free under the statute’s free list. Lower bodies including the board of general appraisers and the district court ruled for the importers, but an appeals court reversed and upheld the duty. The case reached the Court to decide which tariff provision controls.

Reasoning

The Court asked whether the flour was covered by the general duty on “starch, including all preparations ... fit for use as starch” or by the specific free listing of “tapioca.” Relying on the ordinary commercial name and the rule that a specific designation controls over a general description, the Court held that tapioca flour is commercially tapioca and falls on the free list. The Court also found that, in practical use, the flour is not commonly used as starch throughout the United States (its laundry use being largely limited to Chinese laundries on the Pacific coast), so it is not a “preparation fit for use as starch” in the statutory sense. The Court therefore sided with the importers and ordered the appeals court judgment reversed and the district court judgment affirmed.

Real world impact

Tapioca flour imports like those in this case will be admitted free of the starch duty. Importers and Pacific Coast laundries that rely on this product avoid the tariff. Customs officials must respect the product’s commercial name when the statute names it explicitly.