SALVAGE

The portion of goods or property that has been saved or remains after some type of casualty, such as a fire.

The term salvage is defined more specifically depending on the industry referring to it. In business, salvage is any property that is no longer useful but has scrap value. An example of business salvage is obsolete equipment. In insurance, salvage is the portion of property that the insurance company takes after paying the claim for the loss. The insurance company may deduct the salvage value from the amount of the claim paid and leave the property with the insured. In admiralty or maritime law, salvage is the compensation allowed to persons who voluntarily save a ship or its cargo from impending danger. In addition to compensation, maritime salvage may be property that is recovered from vessels that were shipwrecked, derelict, or recaptured. Salvage as a legal concept typically concerns maritime salvage.

To establish a valid salvage claim under maritime law, the claimant must prove the following: the salvage was needed because of a marine peril; the claimant's service was rendered voluntarily and not because of an existing duty or contract; and the claimant's service contributed to the success of the salvage in whole or in part.

The element of peril is an important, yet misunderstood, element. The maritime interpretation of peril is broad and liberal. Imminent and absolute danger is not a requirement for maritime peril. If the property is in danger, or stranded "so that it [is] subject to the potential danger of damage or destruction," then peril exists (McNabb v. O. S. Bowfin, 565 F. Supp. 22 [W.D. Wash. 1983]). Also, the degree of peril does not determine whether the salvor will be entitled to a salvage award, but it will be considered in determining the amount of the award. According to the admiralty law of the United States, a stranded vessel that may be exposed to wind, weather, and waves is considered to be in a position where it may be destroyed and is therefore in peril.

A wide variety of services can support a claim for a salvage award. For example, a claim for salvage has been granted where the salvor provided assistance in putting out a fire when the fire was not under immediate control. A salvage service claim may even succeed where the salvor assisted in putting out a nearby fire that had the potential to endanger the vessel.

Voluntarily towing a drifting vessel to safety has also supported a claim for salvage award, even where the drifting vessel was not in danger of immediate or absolute harm and apprehension of danger was minimal. Along the same lines, towing a stranded vessel has also constituted salvage service. In the towing situation, courts have held that although there is no apprehension of immediate harm or danger, a stranded vessel is subject to high winds and other severe weather, placing the vessel in peril.

Courts have also upheld a salvage service claim when the crew, master, or officers were incapacitated, and when the vessel was exposed to a hazard of the sea as a result of its master's uncertainty.

In all situations of salvage service, the service must be entirely voluntary. The salvor cannot have provided the service pursuant to any type of contract or agreement or other existing duty. When the U.S. Navy or Coast Guard provided the salvage service, the issue as to whether those services were in fact voluntary has arisen.

When the Navy performs the salvage service, courts have held that, because salvage is not one of the functions of the Navy, any assistance provided by the Navy is voluntary, regardless of whether the Navy is in the area where the salvaged vessel is in peril. Federal law now provides that "the Secretary of Navy may settle any claim by the United States for salvage services rendered by the Department of Navy and may receive payment of any such claim" (10 U.S.C.A. § 7363 [1996]).

Similar claims by the Coast Guard have had different outcomes. According to statute, the Coast Guard may "perform any and all acts necessary to rescue and aid persons and protect and save property" (14 U.S.C.A. § 88 [1996]). Most courts and commentators have interpreted this language as creating a legal duty. Therefore, under this interpretation the government would not have a right to a salvage award for services rendered by the Coast Guard. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to follow this interpretation in the case of United States v. American Oil, 417 F.2d 164 (1969). In its decision, the court held that the Coast Guard did not have a preexisting duty to perform salvage services and that the statutory language defining the Coast Guard's duties was permissive. Although the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals may allow the United States to recover salvage awards for services rendered by the Coast Guard, other courts have declined to follow this interpretation, leaving the right of the government to recover salvage awards for services rendered by the Coast Guard still under debate.

The salvage service rendered must also have been successful, either in whole or in part. Furthermore, the salvor must have contributed to the success. The salvor, however, does not have a right to force his or her services on a distressed vessel. The doctrine of rejection applies when the master of a distressed vessel directly and unequivocally rejects the salvor's services. In that situation, the salvor does not have a right to a salvage award.

In determining the amount of the salvage award, the court will go beyond the value of the services. In 1869 the U.S. Supreme Court, in The Blackwall, 77 U.S. (10 Wall.) 1, 19 L. Ed. 870, set forth the following criteria in determining the amount of the award: (1) the labor expended by the salvors in rendering the salvage service; (2) the promptitude, skill, and energy displayed in rendering the service and saving the property; (3) the value of the property employed by the salvors in rendering the service and the danger to which such property was exposed; (4) the risk incurred by the salvors in securing the property from the impending peril; (5) the value of the property saved; and (6) the degree of danger from which the property was rescued.

When a salvage award is granted, all of the parties who participated in the salvage service will share in the award based on their participation. In addition, the owner, master, and crew of the salvaged vessel are entitled to share in the award. If the salvaged property is damaged as a result of the salvage effort, the owner may claim that the salvor was negligent. If the court finds that the salvor did not adhere to a standard of reasonable care, the salvage award will be reduced depending on the degree of negligence.

An action for salvage is generally an in rem action. This means that the suit is brought against the property saved, such as the ship or its cargo. In the event that the property is no longer within the jurisdiction or has been destroyed, an in personam action may be brought to recover the salvage award. These salvage actions fall under the jurisdiction of the admiralty courts.

Anyone with a direct pecuniary interest in the property salved, such as the owner, may be liable for the salvage award. In addition, anyone who may be liable for the property, for instance a bailee, may also be liable for the salvage award. The persons liable for the salvage award are not necessarily the individuals who requested the salvage services.

In the event that the salvage claim involves a shipwreck, the court has "qualified jurisdiction" when the wreck site is exclusively within the waters of the contiguous zone of the United States. In addition, U.S. admiralty courts have asserted jurisdiction of wrecks in international waters when certain pieces of the wreck were brought into the jurisdiction of the court. This is based on the "first salvor rule," which protects the first salvor from losing the "trove" once it has started salving the wreck to other parties who may intervene and attempt to take over the salvage operations. Most countries recognize the right of the first salvor and will uphold a lien issued by another jurisdiction according to this rule.

According to the agreement, the convention was to become effective one year after 15 states had expressed their consent to be bound by it. In 1996 the agreement became binding, or entered into force, upon 22 countries.

further readings

Burstein, Susanne M. 2002. "Saving Steel over Souls: The Human Cost of U.S. Salvage Law." Tulane Maritime Law Journal 27 (winter).

Forrest, Craig J.S. 2003. "Has the Application of Salvage Law to Underwater Cultural Heritage Become a Thing of the Past?" Journal of Maritime Law and Commerce 34 (April).

Landrum, Bruce. 1989. "Salvage Claims for the Navy and Coast Guard: A Unified Approach." Naval Law Review 38 (winter).

Morton, C. W. 1999. Sea Trials. New York: St. Martin's.

Neilson, William L. 1992. "The 1989 International Convention of Salvage." Connecticut Law Review 24 (summer).

cross-references

Admiralty and Maritime Law; Negligence.

salvage. From around the 14th century many Italian and other coastal cities already had sea laws in place that defined a split between the finder and the original owner in the value of salvaged goods brought into their harbours. In most cases this was dependent on whether the goods were recovered floating on the surface (see flotsam), or from the sea bottom (see lagan), and how close the shipwrecks were to the harbour. In the late 19th century salvage became the compensation paid by the owner of a ship or a cargo in respect of services rendered by persons, other than the ship's company, in preserving a ship or cargo from shipwreck or fire, a process in which tugs often played an important role. Lloyd's Form of Salvage Agreement (Lloyd's Open Form) was first adopted in 1892 on the basis of ‘no cure, no pay’, and it has been evolving ever since. In the UK salvage by an individual or a company is governed by the legal definition of wreck.

But the word salvage has other meanings, too, from the skilled techniques of firms employed to raise, or move, dangerous wrecks, to the activities of individuals who undertake diving expeditions to recover sunken treasure. Nowadays, sites are protected from the activities of the latter and marine archaeology plays a major role in preserving and interpreting what has been found. For example, the Mary Rose was a salvage operation but was undertaken by experts with conservation as the primary objective. However, marine archaeologists and salvage operators often use the same equipment, though their objectives are often different. Side-scan sonars are used to locate wrecks accurately and divers' salvage reports have been replaced by television surveys carried out by underwater vehicles.

From the second half of the 15th century onwards exploration by sea saw many European ships being lost around the world. Among the Caribbean islands in particular, seasonal hurricanes sank any number of Spanish treasure ships before they even reached the Atlantic Ocean for the voyage home. Salvage from such wrecks soon became a thriving business. Locals using free-diving techniques were pressed into service, not only by the Spanish themselves, but by many other nationalities who wanted to recover a fortune from under the sea.

In the late 17th century an American-born Englishman, William Phips, found sponsors for an expedition to investigate the wreck of the La Nuestra Señora de la Concepción off the island of Hispaniola. Sailing in a ship supplied by the king, he located her, against the odds, and his divers recovered a staggering 37 tons of treasure, worth at that time £207,600. Arriving back in England in June 1687, Phips received his one-sixteenth share and was knighted, while his main sponsor, the Duke of Albemarle, became a very rich man. In the years following Phips's success much of the coastline around Britain and the Americas, then owned by the British crown, was to be divided up and sold off to potential wreck hunters, with the crown taking a share of the profits. However, many investors went bankrupt, including the author of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe.

Early salvage methods usually involved the recovery of both goods and guns. Grapnels, attached by divers, ripped off the decks of sunken wrecks to allow the divers vertical access. The alternative, described in 16th-century editions of Vitruvius, a Roman architect from the 4th century ad, was to lift and move an entire sunken vessel. In a method used successfully in a Venetian lagoon, two sailing ships positioned themselves either side of the wreck linked together with wooden beams. Lifting ropes were run under its hull and the wreck gradually moved into shallower water, helped by successive incoming tides. From then on this was the general method used in raising a wreck, though each one presented, and presents, a different set of problems. Certainly, salvage work became much more efficient with the introduction in the 19th century of steam winches. Using well-developed rigging techniques, and the wire rope which was introduced towards the end of the century, these provided enough power for even wrecks to be rolled over.

Many ships posed a danger to shipping by sinking very close to port or, as the Vasa did, in the harbour itself. Stockholm already had wreck removal measures under way in the early 17th century, as did Sheerness dockyard in England. At Sheerness, gunpowder was employed to clear a channel of a shipwreck. It was sealed in barrels, lowered to the bottom and then ignited from the surface by means of a gunpowder fuse inside a long leather pipe. The same method was used later in the century, for clearing the River Tiber between the sea port of Ostia and Rome, and again for the removal of the wreck of the Royal George. As diving techniques improved, there began a golden age of stories of treasure recovered from wrecks. Typically, after the Alphonse XII sank off Grand Canary in 1885, divers descended 51 metres (160 ft) to smash their way through a number of decks and reach the strong room, recovering £90,000 of the £100,000 of gold being carried. In 1917 the liner Laurentic, a casualty of war, went down with £5,000,000 of bullion of which 99% was later recovered by salvage operators. When the ocean liner Egypt sank in much deeper water in 1922, an observation chamber directed surface-operated grabs which recovered three-quarters of the £1,045,000 in gold aboard.

Improvements in water pump and air compressor efficiency opened up many more possibilities for innovative methods by professional salvage companies. After the German High Seas Fleet scuttled itself in Scapa Flow in 1919, all but one of the wrecks was removed using access tubes with airlocks so that workers could enter the hulls below water level and work under pressure. Divers could also install patches over holes in a sunken hull, then attach air hoses which pumped air into the hull to restore enough buoyancy for it to be moved. Lifting caissons were often employed, as with the wreck of the US submarine Squalus, which sank off the east coast of the USA in 1939. Caissons were rigid structures that offered a fixed volume and a known lifting capability, but small wrecks or objects are sometimes raised using flexible lifting bags. However, great care is needed, as once enough air is added for them to lift the weight from the bottom, water pressure lessens and the air begins to expand. This creates more buoyancy, and the lift can get increasingly out of control.

Where a wreck cannot be moved or hoisted it is cut up instead. In the past, a chain was used to cut through parts of a hull which was worked back and forth using winches or cranes. However, there is now a more efficient flexible wire saw available, and this was used to remove a dangerous wreck in the English Channel in 2003. With the sunken 14,000-tonne Russian submarine Kursk, whose salvage began in 2001 from 100 metres (330 ft) of water, the damaged bow was first cut away. Divers then cut holes in the hull, wire ropes were attached, and the two parts lifted separately.

Peter Dick

salvage in maritime law, the compensation that the owner must pay for having his vessel or cargo saved from peril, such as shipwreck, fire, or capture by an enemy. Salvage is awarded only when the party making the rescue was under no legal obligation to do so. A claim for salvage ordinarily is allowed if the salvor's activities had some effect in averting the threatened peril even if they were not indispensable. In the United States, salvage is granted for rescues made on navigable streams and lakes as well as on the open sea. Salvage includes a reward designed to encourage rescue operations besides the payment for the value of the services. In setting the amount of the salvage, courts consider relevant factors such as the expense and hazard of the rescue and the price of the ship or goods saved. Salvage is distributed by the court to the owner, the master, and the crew of the rescuing ship, usually according to fixed ratios. Salvage money is not payable to the captain and crew of ships commissioned by a government specifically for rescue operations.

sal·vage / ˈsalvij/ • v. [tr.] rescue (a wrecked or disabled ship or its cargo) from loss at sea: an emerald and gold cross was salvaged from the wreck. ∎  retrieve or preserve (something) from potential loss or adverse circumstances: it was the only crumb of comfort he could salvage from the ordeal. • n. the rescue of a wrecked or disabled ship or its cargo from loss at sea: [as adj.] a salvage operation was under way. ∎  the cargo saved from a wrecked or sunken ship: salvage taken from a ship that had sunk in the river. ∎  the rescue of property or material from potential loss or destruction. ∎  Law payment made or due to a person who has saved a ship or its cargo. DERIVATIVES: sal·vage·a·ble adj. sal·vag·er n.

salvage v. rescue (a wrecked or disabled ship or its cargo) from loss at sea: an emerald and gold cross was salvaged from the wreck.
n.
1. the rescue of a wrecked or disabled ship or its cargo from loss at sea: a salvage operation was under way.

2. the cargo saved from a wrecked or sunken ship.
salvageable adj. salvager n.

salvage payment to persons who have saved a ship or its cargo; action of saving a ship, etc.; property salved XVII. — (O)F. — medL. salvāgium, f. L. salvāre SAVE1; see -AGE.
Hence, by back-formation, salve vb.2 save from loss at sea or by fire. XVIII. salvor (-OR1), †salver XVII.

salvageability See recreatability.

salvageability See RECREATABILITY.

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