WASHINGTON - Ashley Furniture and Ethan Allen Interiors are not taking no for an answer in their pursuit to receive antidumping duties in the nearly 10-year-old case against wood bedroom furniture imported from China.

The two giants of the U.S. furniture industry recently filed an appeal to the U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit seeking its arguments to be heard by all 12 judges, according to the Winston-Salem Journal. That same appellate court voted 2-1 on Aug. 19 to deny Ashley's and Ethan Allen's request for slices of the antidumping duty pie that was initiated 10 years ago.

Under the now defunct Byrd Amendment, more than one dozen U.S. furniture companies that joined in the 2003 antidumping petition have received millions of dollars in punitive antidumping duties assessed on wood bedroom furniture imported from China. When the petition, led by Vaughan-Bassett Furniture, was filed, Ashley Furniture fought against it and Ethan Allen stayed on the sidelines. 

The appellate court judge who supported Ashley and Ethan Allen in the Aug. 19 ruling, wrote, "When the Byrd Amendment was enacted, there was no mention of using the support/oppose question in the ITC’s questionnaires as the basis for determining which domestic producers could receive Byrd Amendment distributions."