Dozens of Section 301 Plaintiffs Oppose DOJ Case Management Motion
The Department of Justice ignored the rules of the Court of International Trade when it filed its motion for case management procedures (see 2009240026) in the original Section 301 litigation docket and not those of the other complaints, Husch Blackwell argued in court papers Sept. 25. The firm sued on behalf of 3A Composites USA and more than seven dozen other importers Sept. 18, and filed a second complaint for Flexfab Horizons International and five other plaintiffs Sept. 21. Both complaints, like the more than 3,400 others, seek to vacate the List 3 and List 4A tariffs and get the duties refunded. DOJ’s motion gave no explanation of why it “believes it needs to rush to put the procedures it suggests in place, or why its failure to follow the Court’s rules is justified,” Husch Blackwell said. The firm “only became aware of this Motion” through “a reference to it in the trade press, at which time we retrieved a copy of the Government’s Motion in the HMTX case from the Court’s docket in that separate case,” it said.
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The Husch Blackwell plaintiffs agree that a conference should be convened to “address the procedural issues,” it said. But designation of a test case “will depend upon the nature of the complaints that have been filed, and whether all complaints are virtually identical or are different in material respects,” it said. “DOJ makes no claim that it knows how similar or dissimilar the complaints are and provides no analysis for the conclusion that they should be treated alike.”
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