99-1434 United States v. Mead Corp.

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“No matter which angle we choose for viewing the Customs ruling letter in this case, it fails to qualify under Chevron. On the face of the statute, to begin with, the terms of the congressional delegation give no indication that Congress meant to delegate authority to Customs to issue classification rulings with the force of law. … [T]hough the statute’s direction to disseminate ‘information’ necessary to ‘secure’ uniformity, 19 U. S. C. 1502(a), seems to assume that a ruling may be precedent in later transactions, precedential value alone does not add up to Chevron entitlement; interpretive rules may sometimes function as precedents, see Strauss, The Rulemaking Continuum, 41 Duke L. J. 1463, 1472-1473 (1992), and they enjoy no Chevron status as a class.

“It is difficult, in fact, to see in the agency practice itself any indication that Customs ever set out with a lawmaking pretense in mind when it undertook to make classifications like these. Customs does not generally engage in notice-and-comment practice when issuing them, and their treatment by the agency makes it clear that a letter’s binding character as a ruling stops short of third parties; Customs has regarded a classification as conclusive only as between itself and the importer to whom it was issued, 19 CFR 177.9(c) (2000), and even then only until Customs has given advance notice of intended change, secs. 177.9(a), (c). Other importers are in fact warned against assuming any right of detrimental reliance. sec. 177.9(c).

“Indeed, to claim that classifications have legal force is to ignore the reality that 46 different Customs offices issue 10,000 to 15,000 of them each year… Any suggestion that rulings intended to have the force of law are being churned out at a rate of 10,000 a year at an agency’s 46 scattered offices is simply self-refuting.”

Vacated and remanded.

Stevens, J.; Scalia, J., dissenting

Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, 185 F.3d 1304.