I don't wanna know...
If you find a scooter underwater and know who it belongs to you have to return it. If you attempt to return it to it's original owner and can not locate them it is yours to keep
"A salvor obtains a right to possess the property but not the right of ownership, and the salvor holds the saved property for the benefit of the rightful owner. However, if the law of "finds" applies, then the finder actually obtains possession and ownership of the property. In the case of a "find" the court does not have to set a value because by definition the finder takes title to the property free and clear of all other claims. Remember the rule, "finders keepers losers weepers"."
"The Existing Legal Regime
A. The Laws of Salvage and Finds
It is first necessary to very basically explain the competing laws of salvage and finds. The law of salvage is distinctly maritime,1 and thus jurisdictionally federal.2 It is used to encourage the rescue of property in marine peril by awarding those undertaking rescue operations monetarily or in specie according to several factors.3 The doctrine is also used to grant exclusive salvage rights to a potential salvor who has (1) constructive possession over property in peril and (2) the present intention and capability to successfully perform the salvage operation.4 These rights permit a salvor to conduct salvage operations unfettered by rival salvors.'
The law of finds dates far back into the common law of property.6 The doctrine grants title to unowned property according to principle of "finderskeepers;" actual possession of property creates an interest in that property that can ripen into clear title if no better possessory interest is interposed.7 Thus, to acquire title to property in this fashion, a finder would have to prove the property was either (1) never owned or (2) once owned but since abandoned.8 Since shipwrecks were obviously once owned, it is the second option that a salvor/finder must prove in order to receive an award of title to the wreck or artifacts at issue.
Courts sever salvage petitions into two distinct proceedings, namely the grant of status as exclusive salvor-in-possession and the grant of an award once property is actually possessed.' The status hearings occur preliminarily as an injunctive proceeding,10 and the possessory standard that needs to be shown at that point is only constructive. Not all persons finally taking actual possession after recovery of a shipwreck must first be deemed exclusive salvors; an exclusive status is sought only at the behest of the salvor. As a bounty hunter, you may retrieve items from the ocean floor without wearing the badge of an exclusive salvor-in-possession. However, since the advantages of wearing that badge are intentionally made great by courts in order to encourage salvage operations, salvors naturally prefer to wear that badge.
The awards proceeding occurs lastly, and naturally there can be no award unless operations are successful, which means the possessory standard that needs to finally be met is actual. Though this disjunction of proceedings and distinction in possessory standards makes perfect sense chronologically, it causes a conceptual problem for a final award of title under the law of finds if exclusive salvage rights are granted preliminarily.
The policy motivating the law of finds is fair competition. The law of finds encourages people to seek out and maximize the use of property." Historically and theoretically speaking, it is essential to an award of title under the law of finds that the property be available to all the world for discovery before it is reduced to actual possession, since application of the doctrine of finds requires that the property be abandoned.12 If exclusive salvage rights are granted preliminarily, competition is snuffed out even though title may later be awarded under the law of finds according to policies then made moot by a prior grant of the badge that entitles a salvor to exclusive possession of salvage operations. Additionally, if exclusive salvage rights are granted preliminarily, the property is not available for all the world to discover; in that case, a salvor's exclusive rights themselves would definitionally preclude an award of title under the law of finds and the correlative concept engrained in that doctrine, abandonment. There are two ways to avoid this conceptual conflict.
One way is to deny any salvor who has been preliminarily granted exclusive salvage rights the opportunity to later petition courts for an award of title under the law of finds and the abandonment standard, as the 2006 Titanic Opinion did.13 This scheme solves the definitional conflict, but it is problematic for the policy conflict since the law of salvage is specifically designed to encourage salvage operations and the specter of a costly recovery operation that does not end in title might deter would-be salvors from requesting exclusive salvage rights under salvage law for fear of a recovery that ends in less than title or perhaps nothing at all. In that case, would-be salvors might not seek out exclusive salvage rights because they may likely rather keep open the option of an award of title. Consequently, the policy of competitive practices would be restored, but only to the potential detriment of culturally historical property that is extremely fragile and submerged in an environment that is hostile to human life."
