## Facts

- Nicholas E. Vernicos Shipping Co., Ltd. and another Greek towing/salvage company owned two tugs, *Vernicos Manos* and *Kentavros*, equipped and kept ready to answer calls for assistance.
- In October 1956, two United States Navy store ships of the Sixth Fleet, valued with their stores at more than $2,000,000, were moored together at a hazardous anchorage in St. George’s Bay near Piraeus, Greece.
- On October 29, 1956, a violent squall placed the naval vessels in danger.
- After radio summons, the two Greek tugs responded promptly and assisted in moving the naval ships toward a safer position.
- When conditions worsened later, the tugs returned at the Navy’s request, stood by through the night, and pushed against one vessel to reduce strain on the mooring lines.
- The United States later refused to pay; the tug owners filed an admiralty salvage claim in the Southern District of New York on behalf of themselves and their crews.
- The district court treated the service as salvage and awarded: (a) the tug owners an amount equal to three months’ maintenance expenses ($24,098.70), and (b) the crews an amount equal to three months’ wages ($5,577.60).
- The United States appealed, disputing (among other points) its amenability to suit and the crews’ right to an award given their employment by a professional salvor.

## Issues

1. Whether the United States could avoid a salvage claim for assistance to U.S. naval vessels by asserting sovereign immunity or lack of the reciprocity required for foreign claimants.
2. Whether crew members employed by a professional salvage company may recover salvage awards when they acted under their employer’s direction rather than as independent volunteers.
3. Whether the district court’s salvage awards to the tug owners and crews were excessive.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit rejected the government’s sovereign-immunity defense, concluding that the statutory permission to sue for salvage applied and that the required reciprocity was satisfied.
- The court held that employees of a professional salvor were not automatically barred from receiving salvage awards; the crews could receive modest shares when equity warranted.
- The court concluded the district court’s award required adjustment in part, and therefore modified the decree and otherwise affirmed it (“modified and affirmed”).

## Legal Principles

- Salvage compensation is available when a salvor renders successful or partly successful aid to maritime property in peril through service not owed to the distressed property as a preexisting legal duty; the award is set by a court of admiralty applying equitable factors.
- When a statute authorizes admiralty suits against the United States involving public vessels, foreign claimants’ access may depend on reciprocity—whether the foreign forum would permit comparable claims by U.S. nationals; courts look to actual foreign law and practice, not technical readings that make mutual suit impossible.
- International salvage and immunity conventions excluding warships from their scope do not themselves bar a salvage claim against a naval vessel; they leave the matter to domestic law.
- Crews of a professional salvor, even though employed to perform salvage work as part of their jobs and acting under orders, may share in salvage awards; however, their shares are generally modest compared to the owner’s share, reflecting wages, reduced personal risk, and the owner’s investment in specialized equipment.
- Appellate review of salvage awards is deferential; modification is appropriate only when the trial court’s award is outside the reasonable range indicated by the peril, value saved, risk, promptness and skill, and time and labor expended.

## Conclusion

In *Nicholas E. Vernicos Shipping Co. v. United States*, the Second Circuit held that Greek professional salvors could maintain a salvage claim against the United States for assistance rendered to U.S. Navy store ships during a storm, that the crews were not disqualified from modest salvage shares merely because they were employees of a professional salvor, and that the district court’s decree should be modified in part but otherwise affirmed.


Nicholas E. Vernicos Shipping Co. v. United States, 349 F.2d 465 (1965)