19 U.S.C. § 233
Section 233 · Departure from prescribed forms
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
In cases where the forms of official documents, as prescribed by title 34 of the Revised Statutes, shall be substantially complied with and observed, according to the true intent thereof, no penalty or forfeiture shall be incurred by a deviation therefrom.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
References in Text
Title 34 of the Revised Statutes, referred to in text, was in the original “this Title”, meaning title 34 of the Revised Statutes, consisting of R.S. §§2517 to 3129, which are classified to sections 5, 6, 8, 9 to 11, 31, 32, 37, 129, 232, 233, 240, 257, 258, 282, 283, 286 to 294, 338 to 341, 391, 482, 507, 508, 528, 574 of this title, and sections 110 to 112, 123, 124 of Title 46, Appendix, Shipping. For complete classification of R.S. §§2517 to 3129 to the Code, see Tables.
Codification
R.S. §2769 derived from act Mar. 2, 1799, ch. 22, §111, 1 Stat. 704.