Cite as: 523 U. S. 491 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
the ASA applied to the Brother Jonathan, i. e., that it was abandoned and either embedded or eligible for listing in the National Register, before dismissing the case." Id., at 386. According to the court's reasoning, "in addressing the questions of abandonment, embeddedness, and historical significance of the wreck under the ASA, a federal court does not adjudicate the state's rights," because the ASA establishes the Federal Government's title to a qualifying shipwreck, which is then transferred to a State. Id., at 387. Consequently, in the court's view, "a federal court may adjudicate the question of whether a wreck meets the requirements of the ASA without implicating the Eleventh Amendment." Ibid.
As to the specifics of the State's claim under the ASA, the court held that the District Court did not err in concluding that the State failed to prove that the Brother Jonathan is abandoned within the meaning of the statute. The court reasoned that, in the absence of a definition of abandonment in the ASA, "Congress presumably intended that courts apply the definition of abandonment that has evolved under maritime law." Ibid. In maritime law, the court explained, abandonment occurs either when title to a vessel has been affirmatively renounced or when circumstances give rise to an inference of abandonment. Here, the Court of Appeals concluded, the District Court's "failure to infer abandonment from the evidence presented by the State was not clearly erroneous," given the insurance companies' claims to the ship's insured cargo and undisputed evidence presented by DSR that the technology required to salvage the Brother Jonathan has been developed only recently. Id., at 388. The court also rejected the State's bid to treat the uninsured portion of the wreck as abandoned, explaining that the District Court did not address the status of individual items of cargo or personal property, and that "divid[ing] the wreck of the Brother Jonathan into abandoned and unabandoned portions for the purposes of the ASA" would lead to both
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