Margate Shipping Co v M/V ‘J A Orgeron’ - US Court of Appeals (5th Circuit) (Garwood, Jolly and Higginbotham Ct JJ) - 29 June 1998

Salvage award - Largest maritime salvage award in history - Whether district court erred in its valuation of salved property

During a severe tropical storm off the Florida coast in November 1994 the vessel Cherry Valley , an oil tanker belonging to Margate Shipping Co, rescued a barge containing a valuable external fuel tank for NASA’s space shuttle. The district court held that Margate was entitled to a salvage award equal to 12.5% of the value of the salved property. It found that the value of the barge was $2 million and that the value of the fuel tank was some $51 million, on the basis that that was the production cost. The district court accordingly awarded Margate approximately $6.4 million in salvage - apparently the largest maritime salvage award in recorded history. The district court noted, in the alternative, that even if the value of the fuel tank was only $19 million as the United States had claimed, it would adjust the percentage accordingly so as to result in the same figure for the salvage award.