High Court Denies Bid for Rehearing for Question on Customs Broker License Exam

The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 22 denied Nebraska resident Byungmin Chae's petition for a rehearing of his petition for writ of certiorari seeking review of a question on his 2018 customs broker license exam. The decision marks the end of his legal remedies -- a process that saw Chae, mostly representing himself, take the case through multiple rounds of appeal at CBP, the Court of International Trade, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court (Byungmin Chae v. Janet Yellen, U.S. Sup. Ct. # 23-200).

Chae ultimately ended up one correctly answered question shy of a passing grade.

In the rehearing motion, the pro se petitioner argued that his answer choice for question 27, which concerned types of mail articles not subject to examination or inspection by CBP, was correct. The U.S. said the correct answer is "C. Diplomatic pouches bearing the official seal of France and certified as only containing documents," while Chae selected "B. Mail packages addressed to officials of the U.S. Government containing merchandise" (see 2309060039). The Supreme Court previously declined to review the question (see 2310300023).