The Matthews and the Money: Two Tariff Refund Cases, But Which Matthew Gets Paid?

Two consumer cases raise a simple question: if tariff money is refunded, who actually gets paid?

Two recent cases — Matthew Stockov v. Costco and Matthew Reiser v. FedEx — ask a deceptively simple question:

If a company recovers tariff payments from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), must it return that money to the customers who ultimately bore the cost?

At a high level, the answer might seem obvious. Yes.

But while both plaintiffs are named Matthew, these are two very different cases. One stretches existing doctrine and is evidentially messy. The other is far more straightforward from an evidentiary standpoint. The complication is that there is no clear legal mechanism for recovery.

Stockov v. Costco: A Theory Built on Assumptions

The complaint against Costco Wholesale Corporation is built on a familiar premise: that tariffs imposed under IEEPA were passed through to consumers, and that Costco now stands to receive refunds from CBP after having already recovered those costs from Costco customers through higher prices.

The challenge for the customers, though, is where’s the proof?

There is no direct line from higher prices to the conclusion that Costco has recovered its tariff costs. Retail pricing is messy and reflects multiple inputs — supply chain costs, labor, demand, price elasticity, and operational efficiencies (or lack thereof).

As it is now, the complaint in the Costco case is replete with conclusory statements. Plaintiff claims that Costco’s higher gross margins during the IEEPA tariff period mean that consumers paid those tariffs through inflated prices. That’s a significant leap.

Courts have long struggled with similar issues in indirect purchaser antitrust cases. Prices are affected by multiple variables, and even where costs increase, it is difficult to isolate whether — and to what extent — those costs were passed through to consumers. The same evidentiary problems are likely to appear here.

Unlike the FedEx case discussed below, the Costco plaintiffs cannot point to any tariff line item on a receipt attributing any portion of the purchase price to tariffs. Instead, the complaint relies on margin expansion, public statements, and generalized economic assumptions.

That creates a threshold problem under the federal pleading standard. Twombly requires a complaint to allege enough facts to allow the court to draw a reasonable inference that the defendant is liable, and that conclusory statements are simply not enough to survive a motion to dismiss. Here, the complaint assumes tariff pass-through without alleging the kind of transaction-level facts that would make that inference plausible.

The consumer protection claims fare no better. Allegations that Costco suggested price increases would be a “last resort” do not clearly translate into a misrepresentation at the point of sale. Nor is there a convincing theory that Costco had a duty to disclose a potential future refund — particularly where such refunds were uncertain at the time.

At bottom, the case asks a court to unwind retail pricing decisions after the fact based on an inferred cost component. Courts have historically been reluctant to enter that kind of economic thicket if we can use antitrust indirect purchaser cases as an indicator.

Reiser v. FedEx: A Very Different Kind of Case

The claims against FedEx arise from a materially different structure.

Here, consumers purchased low-value goods that would ordinarily have been duty-free under the de minimis exemption. When that exemption was revoked last year (spring-summer 2025), those goods became subject to tariffs. The complaint assumes that the tariffs imposed on the once-exempt low-cost goods were the IEEPA tariffs.

FedEx, acting as customs broker and Importer of Record (“IoR”), advanced those duties to CBP to clear the goods. It then issued invoices to consumers that itemized the exact amount of duties advanced, along with FedEx’s brokerage fees.

This is not inferred pass-through. It is explicit, itemized, and tied to a specific transaction.

According to the complaint, FedEx sent communications to consumers stating “Your duties, taxes, and fees are due.” Very little ambiguity here. Interestingly, FedEx has since filed a suit against CBP seeking a refund of the IEEPA tariffs but did not refer to its role as IoR on behalf of low-cost-goods consumers. That said, FedEx’s CFO did state that it “will issue refunds to the shippers and consumers who originally bore the cost of the tariffs.”

The clearly delineated tariff cost passthrough to customers creates a strong argument that FedEx being allowed to retain any CBP-issued refunds would result in a double recovery. That just feels wrong.

But the harder question is not whether that result feels unfair. It is whether there is any legal mechanism that requires a different outcome. Customs law allows the IoR itself or its customs broker agent to seek a refund. It does not provide a cause of action for downstream customers with no privity to CBP to recover those funds.

At most, plaintiffs have FedEx’s non-binding word and their conviction that double recovery is wrong.

What they don’t have is a clear legal pathway to recovery.

Open a Pandora’s Box

Both cases raise concerns about double recovery. But there is no clear legal framework to prevent it.

If courts agree that the result “feels wrong” and that downstream consumers who paid the tariffs are entitled to a remedy, the next question is how far that remedy extends. Would it be limited to these cases, or would courts effectively recognize a new cause of action requiring CBP-issued refunds to be passed through to downstream payers? The implications for customs brokers and IoRs handling low-value shipments could extend well beyond these cases.

Conclusion

These cases are not really about tariffs.

They are about whether the law is equipped to deal with a potential windfall that everyone can see coming but where no clear legal doctrine exists to prevent it.

The Costco claims ask courts to infer passthrough in a way that is difficult to prove and harder to administer. The FedEx claims present a cleaner factual record but still depend on legal theories that have not yet been tested in this context.

The equities may point in one direction. Whether the law follows is an open question.

Nadine Jones is the founder of General Counsel Support Services, providing fractional general counsel and strategic legal advisory services. She is a former General Counsel and has provided media commentary on tariffs and related legal issues.