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You might be interested in the Brother Jonathan case from California.

Patrick

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Supreme Court Rules in Brother Jonathan Case

The Supreme Court ruled on 22 April, 1998, on the case between Deep Sea
Research, Inc. and the State of
California. The entire decision can be accessed at
<<http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/96-1400.ZO.html>>.
The case centered on if the Eleventh Amendment rights of the State
applied in this instance, which would mean
Federal courts had no jurisdiction to decide the fate of the Brother
Jonathan. The Supreme Court ruled that the
Eleventh Amendment did not apply, since the State did not possess the
wreck. Also, the court defined that the
term "Abandoned" with regard to the Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987 is
the same as that normally accepted
with regard to Admiralty law. We note that this is a marked deviation
from the definition of the term offered by
the National Park Service in the ASA guidelines published in the
National Register. The case was sent back to
the Court of Appeals to reconsider based on these rulings. We expect no
substantial change to the lower courts
previous decisions.

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