Eastman Chemical Co. v. United States

OPINION

RESTANI, Judge:

This matter is before the court on plaintiffs’ motion for mandamus. Plaintiffs seek an order requiring the United States Customs Service (“Customs”) to hire more personnel or devote more presently employed personnel to the processing of Harbor Maintenance Tax (“HMT”) 1 administrative refund requests so as to achieve a rate of disposition of at least 500 claims per month.

The HMT was declared unconstitutional as applied to exports in United States v. United States Shoe Corp., 523 U.S. 360 (1998). Initially, most HMT refund claims were asserted by means of court action…