Opinion ID: 764166
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Eleventh Amendment Red Herring

Text: 31 Under the ASA, if a State proves that a shipwreck is embedded in the submerged lands of the State and abandoned by its owner, title to the shipwreck vests in the State. See 43 U.S.C. § 2105(a). The Captain Lawrence is embedded in the submerged lands of Michigan. The district court in Fairport I reasoned that, if Behrens had abandoned the shipwreck, Michigan owned the Captain Lawrence, and the Eleventh Amendment prevented the court from refereeing an ASA dispute about ownership. Thus, the district court conducted a preliminary inquiry into abandonment to see whether the case implicated the ASA. See Fairport I, 913 F.Supp. at 555 (If the State bears its burden of showing ... that the Captain Lawrence has been abandoned ... the Court would be divested of jurisdiction to adjudicate the merits of the State's claim.). The court did not seek conclusively to determine whether Behrens abandoned the ship; rather, it ended the inquiry after finding that the State proved that it had a colorable claim to the shipwreck (i.e., that a preponderance of the evidence showed that Behrens abandoned the ship). Under this logic, once Michigan established its colorable claim, the Eleventh Amendment prevented the court from adjudicating any dispute under the ASA. 32 The Supreme Court's recent decision in Deep Sea Research rejects this approach. That opinion definitively instructs us that, if a State does not possess a shipwreck, the Eleventh Amendment does not prevent a federal court from entertaining claims under the ASA to the shipwreck. See Deep Sea Research, 118 S.Ct. at 1473. The Court explicitly distinguished past cases on this ground. See, e.g., id. at 1471 (In this case, unlike in Treasure Salvors, DSR asserts rights to a res that is not in the possession of the State.). 33 In the Brother Jonathan dispute, as in Fairport I, the district court believed that the Eleventh Amendment barred federal jurisdiction over shipwrecks claimed by States through the ASA's transfer of title. The Supreme Court vacated the Brother Jonathan opinion and remanded because the Court found that this evaluation of abandonment was necessarily influenced by the [mistaken] assumption that the Eleventh Amendment was relevant to the courts' inquiry. Deep Sea Research, 118 S.Ct. at 1473. It continued: In light of our ruling that the Eleventh Amendment does not bar complete adjudication of the competing claims to the Brother Jonathan in federal court, the application of the ASA must be reevaluated. Ibid. This implies that, because no jurisdictional barrier exists, the district court should conduct only one abandonment inquiry, and that that inquiry does not ask a preliminary jurisdictional question, but rather resolves whether Behrens abandoned the ship, and thus whether the ASA transfers title to Michigan. 34 The Court's reasoning in Deep Sea Research applies to Fairport's claims. The Fairport Idistrict court believed that the Eleventh Amendment foreclosed jurisdiction if Michigan indeed owned the Captain Lawrence. Thus, the district court dismissed the case after it found that Michigan proved, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Behrens abandoned his ship. Michigan did not possess the boat, however: the Captain Lawrence remained embedded in the lake bed during trial, and the State did not claim any of the artifacts recovered from the vessel. 3 Believing a jurisdictional bar existed if Michigan had title to the boat, the district court conducted only a preliminary inquiry to assess whether Michigan owned the vessel. Once the court decided that Michigan proved by a preponderance of the evidence that Behrens abandoned the boat, it dismissed the case without resolving the competing claims for title. It held that Michigan had a colorable claim to the Captain Lawrence under the ASA; it did not hold that Michigan certainly owned the shipwreck. 35 The Supreme Court has clarified that, because Michigan did not possess the res, the district court should not have undertaken a preliminary Eleventh Amendment inquiry. Rather, Michigan's claim under the ASA should receive an evaluation consistent with the requirements of the ASA and maritime law. The Supreme Court remanded the Brother Jonathan case [i]n light of [the Court's] ruling that the Eleventh Amendment does not bar complete adjudication of the competing claims to the Brother Jonathan in federal court.... Ibid. (emphasis added). Thus, we remand this case to the district court for complete adjudication of the competing claims to the Captain Lawrence. We write to guide the district court in its consideration of two issues: the means of proving abandonment, and the burden of proof placed upon Michigan.