Plaintiffs Ask Court to Reverse Dismissals in LED Lamp Customs Spat Due to 'Excusable Neglect'

The Court of International Trade should reconsider its dismissals of multiple classification lawsuits over LED lamps because the events that resulted in the dismissals constituted "excusable neglect," counsel for Target and other LED importers argued in an Oct. 15 motion. In 10 cases making the classification challenge, the plaintiffs' counsel, John Peterson of Neville Peterson, argued that the plaintiffs' failure to extend the case's stay on the Customs Case Management Calendar "reasonably resulted from events both practical and circumstantial" (Target General Merchandise, Inc. v. United States, CIT #14-00283).

The cases argue against CBP's classification of LED lamps under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 9405 and instead push for classification under subheading 8543.70.70, as "electric luminescent lamps." All 10 cases were suspended pending the resolution of related lawsuits. The plaintiffs moved in late 2019 to extend the time the cases could remain on the case calendar by a year.

Another policy development occurred in 2017 when a new subheading was added to the HTS that specifically provided for "LED lamps," the brief said. The plaintiffs' counsel put together a test case that would include the new subheading. The present issue arose when the lead attorney for the cases, Maria Celis, withdrew from litigation a few moths before the deadline for extending the cases on the CCMC came. Typically, a replacement attorney would be entered into the case.

"At the time the deadline approached, however, counsel found itself stretched to meet numerous other deadlines," the brief said. "... In addition, plaintiffs’ counsel were litigating the case of Cyber Power Systems (USA) Inc. v. United States, Court No. 20-124, on an expedited basis," and in September and October 2020, "counsel filed more than 100 actions challenging the Section 301 tariffs imposed on goods from China. All of this work was undertaken during the COVID-19 crisis, with most of the attorneys in plaintiffs’ counsel’s firm working remotely. Although the firm holds twice-weekly firm wide video calls, the scheduling of these cases was inadvertently omitted from the agenda for such calls. While counsel regrets the neglect which resulted in the inadvertent dismissal of these actions, for the reasons set forth below, plaintiffs submit that the neglect was excusable in the circumstances."

These issues compounded the lack of a handoff within the firm of the case prior to the deadline. "In this case, the formerly responsible attorney having withdrawn from the cases, she did not participate in the meetings after her withdrawal and responsibility for these cases was not reassigned within the firm," the brief said.

Peterson also argued that reversing the dismissals will cause no prejudice to the defendant and not unjustly impact the court. "Restoring these cases to the Court’s calendar will serve only to preserve the Court’s subject-matter jurisdiction over denied administrative protests," the brief said. Also, efforts by the plaintiffs to reverse the dismissals are being made in "good faith," evidenced by the amount of work the plaintiffs have done to address the classification issue raised by these cases, the brief said.