Page 40: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (October 2000)

Legal Beat

The Abandoned Shipwreck Act:

Useful Tool for Historic Preservation or Paper Tiger?

In 1988, Congress enacted the Aban- doned Shipwreck Act (Pub. L. 100-298, 43 U.S.C. §§ 2101-2106), in an effort to give states more authority to protect the historical provenance of abandoned shipwrecks in state waters. It was one of the more controversial laws Congress passed that year because it pitted trea- sure salvors and divers, on the one hand, against states and historic preservation- ists on the other. In the end, the states won passage of the legislation, but some twelve years later, the question remains whether the Act has had the intended effect. Two significant decisions since 1988 have called into question the law's stated Congressional policy.

The Abandoned Shipwreck Act and

Congressional Policy

First, a description of the Act itself.

The Abandoned Shipwreck Act (ASA) asserted title of the United States to any "abandoned shipwreck" that is (1) embedded in submerged lands of a

State, (2) embedded in coral formations protected by a state, or (3) on submerged lands of a state and included in or deter- mined eligible for inclusion in the

National Register, and transferred this title to the states in or on whose sub- merged lands the shipwreck is located.

Submerged lands include lands beneath state waters generally out to three nauti- cal miles. The stated policy of Congress in enacting the ASA was to allow states to protect natural resources and habitat areas, guarantee recreational exploration of shipwreck sites, and allow for appro- priate public and private sector recovery of shipwrecks. Congress also declared that the law of salvage and the law of finds - traditional admiralty principles for the recovery of shipwrecks - were not to apply to abandoned shipwrecks to which title had been transferred.

Although it was a small law by today's standards, it attempted to modify 200 years of admiralty law applicable to the recovery and ownership of shipwrecks.

Perhaps, with hindsight, the goals were too ambitious.

Brother Jonathan and the Eleventh

Amendment

In 1998, the Supreme Court, in a turgid decision construing the applica- tion of the Eleventh Amendment to the

ASA, ruled that the Eleventh Amend- ment was not a bar to a federal court's jurisdiction over an admiralty claim brought by a salvor who had located S.S.

Brother lonathan in California waters. 38

California v. Deep Sea Research, 523

U.S. 491 (1998). The Eleventh Amend- ment generally protects the States from being sued in federal court without their consent. Although the Court's decision is limited in its effect, and did not reach the question of the underlying constitu- tionality of the ASA, it still may have a chilling impact on state claims to ship- wrecks abandoned in their waters.

To review the facts briefly, Deep Sea

Research, Inc. (DSR), a salvage compa- ny, claimed to have located the ship known as Brother Jonathan in Califor- nia's territorial waters. The vessel, a 220-ft., (67 m) wooden-hulled, double side-wheeled steamship, sank in 1865 after striking a submerged rock during a voyage between San Francisco and Van- couver. Most of the ship's passengers and crew perished. The ship's cargo included a shipment of up to $2 million in gold. In 1991, DSR filed an action in the United States District Court for the

Northern District of California seeking rights to the wreck of Brother Jonathan and its cargo. The State of California intervened, claiming it had title to the wreck under the ASA. According to

California, the ASA applied because the vessel was abandoned and was both embedded on state land and eligible for inclusion in the National Register of

Historic Places.

DSR disputed the State's title claim and also argued that the ASA could not divest the federal courts of the exclusive admiralty and maritime jurisdiction con- ferred by Article III, Sec. 2 of the Unit- ed States Constitution. Both the district court and the court of appeals sided with the salvor. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to address the question whether a state's Eleventh Amendment immunity was different in an in rem admiralty action and whether it depends upon evidence of the State's actual pos- session of the res, i.e., the wreck or part thereof, or whether the State can assert bare ownership under cover of the ASA.

Although the Supreme Court has been the jealous guardian of the states' pre- rogatives under the Eleventh Amend- ment, especially in recent years, in this case, the Court distinguished the appli- cation of the Eleventh Amendment in more traditional cases from those in which the federal courts are exercising in rem admiralty jurisdiction. The Court was reluctant to disrupt the federal courts' "constitutionally established jurisdiction" in the area of admiralty jurisdiction, and concluded that where a vessel is not in the actual possession of a sovereign, as it was not in the case of

Brother Jonathan, the Eleventh Amend- ment does not bar federal jurisdiction over the vessel. The district court could resolve the dispute between DSR and the State of California. 523 U.S. 491 at 507-508.

The ASA was intended to grant addi- tional powers to states, and to allow claims to abandoned shipwrecks located in state waters to be adjudicated essen- tially in state courts. In state courts, pre- sumably state historic preservation law would apply to the recovery and protec- tion of wrecks. But, the Supreme Court has put this presumption in serious doubt, allowing federal courts sitting in • SAILOR

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