508
Opinion of the Court
over the Brother Jonathan and, therefore, that the District Court may adjudicate DSR's and the State's claims to the shipwreck. We have no occasion in this case to consider any other circumstances under which an in rem admiralty action might proceed in federal court despite the Eleventh Amendment.
III
There remains the issue whether the courts below properly concluded that the Brother Jonathan was not abandoned for purposes of the ASA. That conclusion was necessarily influenced by the assumption that the Eleventh Amendment was relevant to the courts' inquiry. The Court of Appeals' determination that the wreck and its contents are not abandoned for purposes of the ASA was affected by concerns that if "the vessel had been partially abandoned, both the federal court and the state court would be adjudicating the fate of the Brother Jonathan." 102 F. 3d, at 389. Moreover, the District Court's inquiry was a preliminary one, based on the concern that it was premature "for the court to find that any individual items of cargo or personal property have been abandoned." 883 F. Supp., at 1354. 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. Because the record before this Court is limited to the preliminary issues before the District Court, we decline to resolve whether the Brother Jonathan is abandoned within the meaning of the ASA. We leave that issue for reconsideration on remand, with the clarification that the meaning of "abandoned" under the ASA conforms with its meaning under admiralty law.
Our grant of certiorari also encompassed the question whether the courts below properly concluded that the ASA pre-empts § 6313, which apparently operates to transfer title to abandoned shipwrecks not covered by the ASA to the State. Because the District Court's full consideration of the
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