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Opinion of the Court.

assured knowingly exaggerates his loss, and makes false statements concerning the same, his conduct must of necessity be held fraudulent, for he invites the company to take a false position, to assume new and unjust obligations, to pay a loss that has not been sustained and does not exist, to do that which will prejudice and damage the company. But if the assured had made a true statement of his actual loss, and then answered falsely, for personal reasons, as to the parties from whom he had purchased the goods, or the value of those purchased from a certain house, then there could be no fraud, because there could be no prejudice or damage. The questions would be material as evidence, but not material as to the rights and liabilities of the company."

But this position is untenable. The fact whether Murphy had an insurable interest in the merchandise covered by the policy was directly in issue between the parties. By the terms of the contract he was bound to answer truly every question put to him that was relevant to that inquiry. His answer to every question pertinent to that point was material, and made so by the contract, and because it was material as evidence; so that every false statement on that subject, knowingly made, was intended to deceive and was fraudulent.

And it does not detract from this conclusion to suppose that the purpose of Murphy in making these false statements was not to deceive and defraud the companies, as is stated in the bill of exceptions and certificate, but for the purpose of preventing an exposure of the false statement previously made to the commercial agency in order to enhance his credit. The meaning of that we take to be simply this: that his motive for repeating the false statements to the insurance companies was to protect his own reputation for veracity, and that he would not have made them but for that cause. But what is that but that he was induced to make statements, known to be false, intended to deceive the insurance companies, lest they might discover, and others through them, the falsity of his previous statements; in other words, that he attempted, by means of a fraud upon the companies, to protect his reputation and credit? In any view, there was a fraud attempted upon the insurers;

Syllabus.

and it is not lessened because the motive that induced it was something in addition to the possible injury to them that it might work. The supposition proceeds upon the very ground of the false statement of a material matter, knowingly and wilfully made, with the intent to deceive the defendants in error; and it is no palliation of the fraud that Murphy did not mean thereby to prejudice them, but merely to promote his own personal interest in a matter not involved in the contract with them. By that contract the companies were entitled to know from him all the circumstances of his purchase of the property insured, including the amount of the price paid and in what manner payment was made; and false statements, wilfully made under oath, intended to conceal the truth on these points, constituted an attempted fraud by false swearing which was a breach of the conditions of the policy, and constituted a bar to the recovery of the insurance.

Such we understand to be the precise effect of the rulings of the justice presiding at the trial of the case in the court below, in refusing the requests to instruct the jury as asked by the plaintiffs in error, and in giving the instructions contained in the charge excepted to; and, finding no error in them,

The judgment is affirmed.

HILTON & Another v. MERRITT, Collector.

IN ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK.

Argued December 17th and 18th, 1883.-Decided January 14th, 1884.

Customs Duties.

1. The valuation of merchandise made by customs officers, under the statutes, for the purpose of levying duties thereon, is, in the absence of fraud on the part of the officers, conclusive on the importer.

2. §§ 2931, 3011, Rev. Stat., which give the right of appeal to the Secretary of the Treasury, when duties are alleged to have been illegally or erroneously exacted, and the right of trial by jury in case of adverse decision by the Secretary of the Treasury, do not relate to alleged errors in the appraisement of goods, but to the rate and amount of duties imposed upon them after appraisement.

VOL. CX-7

Opinion of the Court.

This was a suit brought by the plaintiffs in error, who were plaintiffs in the Circuit Court, to recover the sum of $1,037.40, an alleged excess of duties exacted by the defendant as collector of customs at the port of New York, on two cases of kid gloves imported by plaintiffs from Paris, France, in the steamer Mosel, in June, 1878.

The complaint alleged that the plaintiffs made due protest at the time of paying such excessive duties, and made due and timely appeal to the Secretary of the Treasury, who affirmed the decision of defendant by which said duties were exacted.

The answer denied that the duties exacted were excessive, and averred that they were according to the rule imposed by law.

The case was tried by a jury, who, after hearing the evidence, returned, by direction of the court, a verdict for defendant, upon which judgment for costs was entered in his favor. To reverse that judgment this writ of error is prosecuted.

Mr. Henry E. Tremain for plaintiff in error.

Mr. Solicitor-General for defendant in error.

MR. JUSTICE WOODS delivered the opinion of the court. It appears from the bill of exceptions found in the record that the withdrawal entry of the packages on which the duty occasioning this controversy arose, was made October 23d, 1878. The local appraiser made and reported to the collector his appraisement of the goods. The importers being dissatisfied therewith, demanded a reappraisement according to law, which was allowed, and a merchant appraiser appointed to be associated with one of the general appraisers

The merchant appraiser made an appraisement of the standard gloves at 42 francs per dozen, and of the invoice at 16,613.10 francs, which corresponded with the importer's invoice and entered valuation of the merchandise in question.

The general appraiser made a report of his appraisement on the same day, in which he put the value of the standard gloves at 52 francs, and the total valuation at 20,282.85 francs.

Upon receiving these and other appraisements, the collector

Opinion of the Court.

wrote to the general appraiser a letter, dated October 10th, 1878, in which he said:

The

"I have received the reports on the re-appraisement of gloves entered by Wilmerding, Hoguet & Co., per S. S. Lessing; Iselin, Neeser & Co., per S. S. Pereire; and A. T. Stewart & Co., per S. S. Mosel, together with a mass of testimony taken at the hearing, and a special report from yourself, giving in extenso your reasons for differing from the merchant appraisers in these cases. merchant appraisers sustain the invoices or entered value, while you advance the value in two of the cases upwards of 20 per cent. The law requires the collector in cases of difference to decide between the merchant and general appraiser. I find that it has been the almost universal practice for the collector under these circumstances to adopt the higher valuation. Unwilling to accept this easy method of disposing of troublesome questions, and believing it to be the duty of a government officer, while carefully protecting the revenue, to see that no injustice is done to the merchant, I have personally devoted much time and attention to the examination of the evidence presented.

"It is a matter of surprise that three discreet' merchants should differ so widely from the general appraiser. With no disposition to evade the responsibility placed upon me by the law, I consider that the interests involved and the vexatious delays in reaching a satisfactory conclusion require that an effort should be made to fix a value which will remain unchallenged. I have therefore to suggest that you re-examine the evidence, in the hope that a result may be reached which shall not, on the one hand, make it appear that the merchants of New York cannot be relied upon to give a fair hearing and correct judgment on a question of value, or on the other hand, that the government seeks and enforces by its might that which is unjust.

"I would call your attention to the conflicting evidence as to the similarity of the glove marketed in London and New York.

"I would also call your attention to the amount to be added per button to represent the true value. I find it difficult from the evidence to fix this amount at five francs per dozen.

"The three reports are returned herewith."

To this letter the general appraiser replied, by letter of the same date, stating, among other things, as follows:

Opinion of the Court.

"As to the invoices under consideration I do not feel at liberty to formally withdraw the reports I have already presented, because they were found on the evidence received on the reappraisements, and I think it best that they should stand as expressing my convictions based on that evidence. If, however, you are willing to retain them as memoranda for that purpose, and will accept as substitutes therefor the additional reports which I present herewith and have designated as 'amended' reports, I shall feel that I have met, to the best of my ability, the considerations which your letter set forth."

The amended report of the general appraiser fixed the value of the merchandise in question in this case at 49 francs.

The collector, on October 23d, 1878, assessed the duty, 50 per cent. ad valorem, on the merchandise, based on the valuation of the standard glove at 49 francs, adopting the appraisement returned in the amended report of the general appraiser, that being an advance of the invoice value of 16.2 per cent., and imposed an additional duty of 20 per cent. ad valorem on account of undervaluation in the entry.

The importers, the plaintiffs in error, duly protested against the action of the collector and, under protest, paid the duties assessed and appealed to the Secretary of the Treasury, who, on November 11th, 1878, approved the decision of the collector, holding, however, that the correctness of the valuation was not a matter subject to appeal.

Upon the trial of the case the plaintiffs offered in evidence the records of the proceedings before the merchant appraiser and the general appraiser, including the testimony and various documents before those officers, and subsequently before the collector. They also offered the testimony of one Hildreth, an expert, and others, to show the foreign market value of gloves at the principal markets of France, whence the merchandise in question was imported. They also offered the testimony of the collector to show all the facts within his knowledge, or officially acted upon by him, in relation to the invoice in question, and to show what his experience was in valuing kid gloves. They also offered to prove the cost of the manufacture of goods similar to those in question. All the evidence

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