## Facts

- Treasure Salvors, Inc. and Armada Research Corp. conducted deep-sea salvage operations to locate a seventeenth-century Spanish galleon believed to be the *Nuestra Señora de Atocha*, which sank in 1622 near the Marquesas Keys west of Key West, Florida.
- The wreck site was on the outer continental shelf beyond U.S. territorial waters.
- After extensive search efforts and expenditures, the salvors recovered artifacts from the wreck and sought judicial protection for continued recovery.
- The salvors filed an in rem admiralty action seeking possession and confirmation of title to the wreck and cargo, alleging abandonment and entitlement under the law of finds or, alternatively, salvage law.
- The United States intervened and asserted title, arguing that the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), together with the Antiquities Act of 1906, gave the federal government superior rights to the wreck as an object of antiquity on the outer continental shelf.
- The district court granted summary judgment for the salvors, rejecting the federal statutory title theory and confirming the salvors’ superior rights; the United States appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether OCSLA and the Antiquities Act vested the United States with title to, or control sufficient to defeat private admiralty claims over, a historic shipwreck located on the outer continental shelf beyond territorial waters.
2. Whether traditional admiralty doctrines (law of finds and/or salvage) permitted the salvors to obtain judicial confirmation of superior rights to the wreck and recovered property.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit modified and affirmed the district court’s judgment.
- The court rejected the United States’ claim that OCSLA, alone or in combination with the Antiquities Act, vested federal title to the historic wreck or displaced admiralty finds/salvage doctrines.
- The court upheld the salvors’ superior rights to possession and ownership of recovered artifacts under admiralty principles, subject to modifications to the form and scope of the decree.

## Legal Principles

- OCSLA’s grant of federal jurisdiction and control over the outer continental shelf is directed primarily to mineral resource development and does not, without clearer statutory direction, vest the United States with ownership of historic shipwrecks resting on the shelf.
- The Antiquities Act is protective and regulatory; absent a clear statement, it does not operate as an automatic vesting of federal title to historic objects or as a repeal of traditional admiralty finds and salvage rules.
- Historic shipwreck disputes on the outer continental shelf remain governed by admiralty law, including the law of finds (for abandoned property) and salvage principles (for recovery services), unless displaced by a specific and clearly applicable sovereign claim or statutory scheme.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit held that federal shelf statutes did not confer federal title to the alleged Atocha wreck and did not bar private admiralty claims; the salvors’ superior rights under maritime finds/salvage doctrines were affirmed, with limited modifications to the decree.


Treasure Salvors, Inc. v. Unidentified Wrecked & Abandoned Sailing Vessel, 569 F.2d 330 (5th Cir. 1978)