Official Opinions of the Attorneys General of the United States Volume 24; Advising the President and Heads of Departments, in Relation to Their Offic (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: is instituted is, in reason, attended with no difference in favor of the importer. If the proceeding is groundless, the goods are to be restored to him, hut the regular duties are to be paid. If the goods are condemned, he loses them, but this doe,s not exempt him from liability for the duties." (Opinion of district court for eastern district of Pennsylvania, Cadwalader, J., in United States v. Seyars, 3 Phil. Rep., 517, 522.) This case cites Meredith . United State (13 Pet., p. 493), in which the Supreme Court approved a decision of the English court of exchequer (Anstr., 558) that even " where a dutiable article was lost or destroyed by a casualty before it became available to the party personally liable for the duty, his liability nevertheless continued." It seems, then, that, as in other branches of the law, the civil liability is not avoided because the punitive remedy has been pursued. Some of the authorities cited refer to forfeiture for fraudulent undervaluation rather than for entry on false or fraudulent invoice, and involve considerations respecting additional duties which under some laws are penal and under others are not. The two offenses lie close together, and the underlying principles are applicable a fortiori to the graver offense of entry by means of a false invoice or ''any false or fraudulent practice or appliance whatsoever." While the authorities appear to be unanimous that in cases of fraudulent undervaluation as well as of fraudulent or false invoices, forfeiture and the collection of regular duties may proceed pitri passu, the Supreme Court declared in the case of the 67 Iu'lfayex of Dry Good (17 How., 85, 94) that if additional lnfyhas been levied, the Government can not forfeit (see also Murray v. Arthur, 13 Blatchf., 413), upon which the Treasury ...