## Facts

- Pollak Import-Export Corp. imported merchandise that Customs classified as wool coats rather than wool jackets.
- Pollak filed a customs protest covering four entry numbers; Customs denied the protest.
- Pollak commenced an action in the Court of International Trade (CIT) by filing a timely summons contesting the protest denial, but the summons listed only one of the four entries.
- Pollak later filed a complaint identifying all four entries covered by the protest.
- The parties settled, and the CIT entered a stipulated judgment for Pollak covering all four entries.
- After judgment, the government moved to amend, asserting the CIT lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the three entries omitted from the summons.
- The CIT agreed, amended the judgment to remove relief for the omitted entries, severed those entries into a new action, and dismissed the severed action as untimely.

## Issues

1. Whether failure to list all entry numbers covered by a denied protest on the CIT summons is a jurisdictional defect that deprives the CIT of subject-matter jurisdiction over omitted entries.

## Decision

- The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded.
- The court held the omission of entry numbers from the summons was not jurisdictional.
- The CIT erred in modifying the stipulated judgment and in dismissing the severed action.
- The Federal Circuit instructed the CIT to reenter the original stipulated judgment covering all four entries.

## Legal Principles

- In a CIT action challenging denial of a customs protest, subject-matter jurisdiction turns on statutory authorization and timely commencement, not technical completeness of information on the summons form.
- The scope of the action is defined by the protested agency decision (the protest and its denial); entries encompassed by the same denied protest are within the court’s jurisdiction when the suit is timely commenced.
- Omission of entry numbers on a summons is a procedural defect that may be cured through later pleadings (including the complaint) and does not negate jurisdiction otherwise properly invoked.

## Conclusion

The Federal Circuit held that a timely summons contesting denial of a protest invoked the CIT’s jurisdiction over all entries covered by that protest, even if the summons omitted some entry numbers, and it ordered reinstatement of the original stipulated judgment granting relief for all four entries.


Pollak Import-Export Corp. v. United States, 52 F.3d 303 (Fed. Cir. 1995)