On 28 August 1943, the steamship James L Richards ran aground. After futile attempts to extricate itself under its own power, it requested assistance from the US Naval Control Officer at Port of Spain, Trinidad. That officer dispatched His Majesty's Rescue Tug Busy, then stationed at Port of Spain and standing by for the purpose of giving aid to allied vessels in distress, to assist the James L Richards. On 30 August 1943, the tug helped the James L Richards free itself from the mud bank.

On 12 April 1946, the US, on behalf of the Lord High Admiral of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, acting on behalf of His Britannic Majesty as owner of the tug, filed a libel against the James L Richards. The defendant took the position that the libel was barred by s 4 of the Salvage Act of 1912, 46 USCA s 730, (the Act) (based on art 10 of the International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of Law relating to Assistance and Salvage at Sea 1910 (the Salvage Convention 1910)), which provided:

That a suit for the recovery of recovery of remuneration for rendering assistance or salvage services shall not be maintainable if brought later than two years from the date when such assistance or salvage was rendered, unless the court in which the suit is brought shall be satisfied that during such period there had not been any reasonable opportunity of arresting the assisted or salved vessel within the jurisdiction of the court or within the territorial waters of the country in which the libelant resides or has his principal place of business.

The US contended that the Act had no application because its s 5 (based on art 14 of the Salvage Convention 1910) provided that

nothing in this Act shall be construed as applying to ships of war or to Government ships appropriated exclusively to a public service.

The US also contended that it was impossible to arrest the salved vessel in the home waters of the salvors, which operated to intermit and toll the limitation period.

The District Court for Massachusetts dismissed the libel. It held that s 5 of the Act was 'inapposite', in that it precluded application of the Act, and of the Salvage Convention 1910 which it was passed to implement, when the salved vessel was a ship of war or government ship appropriated exclusively to a public service, but did not preclude its application when claims were made for services rendered by a government ship to a private vessel like the James L Richards.

Held: Order affirmed.

The tug, although perhaps not strictly speaking a ship of war, was certainly a government ship 'appropriated exclusively to a public service'. At first glance, it might appear that the provision of s 5 of the Act prevented any application of the time limitation in s 4 to any case in which either the rescuing or the rescued vessel was a naval or government ship. But s 5 prevented application of the Act to ships of certain described kinds, not to governments, or to public officers or servants, and the only ships involved as legal entities in cases of marine salvage were the vessels salved. Libels in admiralty for salvage have never been brought in this country by the rescuing vessels as a juristic person, nor has salvage ever been awarded to such a vessel as an entity. This practice accorded with the definition of salvage and the policy underlying the award of salvage.

Furthermore, construing arts 14 and 15 of the Salvage Convention 1910 together, it would seem that the Convention was not meant to apply to government ships as legal entities but was meant to apply 'as regards all persons interested' when government ships are involved in salvage operations. When a government ship is the rescuer, these are typically its owner and personnel. This by strong inference supported the conclusion that s 5 of the Act, the language of which closely paralleled that of art 14 of the Salvage Convention 1910, was intended to exclude only government ships as legal entities from the application of the Act in the same way that art 14 excluded only such ships from the application of the Salvage Convention 1910.

The time limitation imposed upon the bringing of suits for salvage in s 4 of the Act barred the instant libel. The James L Richards was clearly never within British territorial waters during the two years following its rescue. It was travelling along the Atlantic coast of the US throughout that entire period. During the two-year period, it was not only several times within the jurisdiction of some US district court, but also within the jurisdiction of the particular US District Court where the instant libel was filed, no fewer than 52 times.