If captured goods claimed by a neutral owner be by consent sold
under an order of the court, and afterwards, by the final sentence
of the court, the proceeds are ordered to be restored to such
owner, the amount of the duties due to the United States upon the
importation of the goods must be paid.
This was an appeal from the sentence of the circuit court
affirming that of the district court, which restored to the
claimants, neutral Spanish merchants at Tenerife, 20 pipes of wine,
part of the cargo of the British brig
Concord, captured by
the American privateer
Marengo in August, 1812, without
payment of duties, although the same had been, by consent of the
proctors for the parties, sold under an order of the court.
STORY, J. delivered the opinion of the Court, as follows:
This is the case of a shipment made by a neutral house on board
of a British ship which was captured on a voyage from Tenerife to
London by the private armed ship
Marengo and brought into
the port of New
Page 13 U. S. 388
York for adjudication. Pending the prize proceedings, the goods
were sold by an interlocutory order of the district court and the
proceeds brought into the registry. Upon the hearing, the property
was decreed to be restored to the claimants without payment of
duties, and this decree was afterwards affirmed in the circuit
court. The cause has been brought by appeal to this Court for a
final decision.
We are all of opinion that the proprietary interest of the
claimants is completely proved, and therefore the decree of
restoration must be
Affirmed.
With respect to the duties, we are all of opinion that the
decree of the courts below was erroneous. Where goods are brought
by superior force or by inevitable necessity into the United
States, they are not deemed to be so imported, in the sense of the
law, as necessarily to attach the right to duties. If, however,
such goods are afterwards sold or consumed in the country, or
incorporated into the general mass of its property, they become
retroactively liable to the payment of duties. In the present case,
if the goods had been specifically restored and afterwards
withdrawn from the United States by the claimants, they would have
been exempt from duties. But having been sold by order of the
court, for the general benefit the duties indissolubly attached,
and ought to have been deducted from the proceeds by the courts
below. The decree in this respect must be
Reversed.
