## Facts

- In 1978, Gerald Klein, while sport diving in Biscayne National Park, discovered remains of an eighteenth-century English sailing vessel with artifacts in and around the wreck.
- The wreck lay entirely within Biscayne National Park and within submerged lands of the United States’ territorial sea, owned and administered by the United States as part of the national park system.
- The wreck was embedded/buried in the seabed, with items located in and around the structure.
- In 1975, the United States conducted an archaeological survey that identified the vessel and its approximate location, but had not precisely located the wreck or recovered artifacts before Klein’s discovery.
- Klein removed a limited number of artifacts and, in 1979, brought them into the district court’s custody and filed an in rem admiralty action seeking title under the law of finds or, alternatively, a salvage award.
- The district court found Klein’s efforts insufficient to establish either ownership or entitlement to salvage.
- During litigation, Gerald Klein died; his wife, Joan M. Klein, was substituted and pursued the appeal.

## Issues

1. Whether a private finder can obtain title under the maritime law of finds to an ancient, abandoned wreck embedded in federally owned submerged lands within a national park and the United States’ territorial sea.
2. Whether the finder’s actions entitled him to a salvage award against the United States under traditional salvage doctrine, including the requirement of maritime peril.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the judgment for the United States.
- The court held the United States had title to the embedded wreck and artifacts because they were located on and in federally owned submerged lands within a national park and subject to federal control.
- The court rejected Klein’s law-of-finds claim because the finds doctrine did not displace the United States’ ownership and constructive possession of property embedded in its land.
- The court affirmed denial of a salvage award because the required elements of salvage, particularly a qualifying maritime peril and salvage services, were not established on the district court’s findings.
- The court deferred to the district court’s fact findings under the clearly erroneous standard in evaluating peril and the nature of the alleged salvage efforts.

## Legal Principles

- The law of finds generally does not award title to a private finder where a shipwreck is embedded in submerged lands owned by a sovereign that exercises control over the area.
- A sovereign’s ownership of the seabed, combined with regulatory authority and prior management or survey activity, can support constructive possession of embedded wrecks and associated artifacts.
- A salvage claim requires: (1) maritime peril, (2) voluntary service, and (3) success or contribution to success.
- “Maritime peril” requires a showing that the vessel or property faced danger such that it could not have been rescued without the salvor’s assistance; long-undisturbed, protected, embedded historic wrecks may fail this requirement absent evidence of imminent loss.
- Removal of limited artifacts, without a coordinated recovery effort directed at rescuing property from peril, may be treated as insufficient to constitute compensable salvage services.

## Conclusion

The court held that an embedded shipwreck and its artifacts within a federally owned national park belong to the United States, and that a private diver who located and removed some items was entitled to neither title under the law of finds nor a salvage award because the record did not show the necessary maritime peril or qualifying salvage services.


Klein v. Unidentified Wrecked & Abandoned Sailing Vessel, 758 F.2d 1511 (11th Cir. 1985)