WHITNEY v.

ROBERTSON
124 U.S. 190, 8 S.Ct. 456, 31 L.Ed. 386 (1888).

Court: US Supreme Court

Sources of Law:
Treaties: Treaty of 1875 between the United States and the Hawaiian Islands; Treaty of 1867 between the
United States and the Dominican Republic
Municipal Law: US Constitution and federal statutes

Facts:
In August of 1882, merchants doing business in New York imported a large quantity of “centrifugal and
molasses sugars” from the island of San Domingo. The defendant, or the collector of the port, did not allow this
import to be admitted in the same free of duty way as the sugar imported from the Hawaiian Islands.
In making this argument, Whitney cited a treaty between the United States and the Dominican Republic
that said: “No higher or other duty shall be imposed on the importation into the United states of any article the
growth, produce, or manufacture of the Dominican Republic, or of her fisheries, than are or shall be payable on
the like articles the growth, produce, or manufacture of any other foreign country or of its fisheries.” They paid
the amount requested in duties, but protested and brought the case to the Supreme Court to try to recover their
money.

Issue(s):
Was the plaintiff supposed to pay duties in the first place and can the plaintiff recover the amount paid on
duties?

Holding:
Affirmed; the plaintiff had to pay the amount.

Reasoning:
In accordance with the Supremacy clause, both the treaties and the Acts of Congress should be equally
examined as the ‘supreme law of the land.’ (i.e. equal footing). The Acts of Congress was passed after the treaty
with the Dominican Republic.
In the case of any conflict between the two, the latter must control. Effort should be made to try to
accommodate the two mandates. If the two are inconsistent, the one last in date will control the other.

Prepared by Manuela Canesin and Abby Enes

Legal note: (Prof. Nakazato)

There is an acknowledgement at the end of the case about how the Dominican Republic itself has the right to
complain about the ruling, because under customary law (and codified in Article 27 of the VCLT) states may
not neglect their treaty obligations by citing their domestic law. This is exactly what the Unite States has done
by invoking the norm that more recent laws have precedence, even though it is in violation of the treaty with the
Dominican Republic.