Brock Lovett and his team were searching for the Heart of the Ocean. IANAML, but it’s my understanding that if they recovered it from the wreckage they’d (or rather his sponser) be able to claim legal ownership and sell it. But what if at the end Rose decided to just give him the necklace instead of throwing it into the ocean? Did Rose actually own it, afterall Cal did give it to her? Would Cal’s descendants have a claim? Or would the insurance company (which has a very good change of still existing in some form) be able to claim it since they payed the insurance claim? It’s not salvage; it’s just been sitting in a woman’s (who may or may not be the rightful owner) jewerly box for 84 years.
Behold the craziness of the legal system – lawyers on both sides would make convincing arguments in favor of their own client, the judge would rule one way or the other, and the appellate judge would overturn the ruling in the other direction, the next level of appellate judges would overturn the ruling again back in the original direction, and there would finally be a settlement of some sort to split the money.
As you say, a good “common sense” argument could be made in favor of any of the parties, so there is no clear-cut answer, and these things get sorted out by a process that’s almost seemingly random. I know that’s unsatisfying, but just think of how many Supreme Court 5-4 decisions there are, and ask yourself how different each case might have been if a president from a different party had been elected. Then that president would have appointed a different supreme court justice who might have flipped the 5-4 decisions in the other direction. That sort of “what if” reasoning extends all the way down each layer of the legal system to the lowest city court. Sadly, there is very rarely any clear cut answer in the legal system. (And even if there were, lawyers are paid large amounts of money to find loopholes in favor of their client anyway).
I am glad you asked that. I am an extreme Titanic fan and have seen the movie several hundred times. There are a lot of small details that tie together well if you watch closely but I never understood what was up with the Heart of the Ocean. It was supposedly stolen and cut down again from a bigger diamond so there is an additional complication that could be eventually pursued by someone.
The basic problem is that I don’t understand why old Rose threw it overboard at the end. I think she wants the salvage ship to find it on their own but that seems like a good way to lose it forever. Do salvage ships sit directly over their target all the time with a high degree of precision? Would a diamond that big fall straight down because it is heavy or would it drift off target by a large amount on the 12600 ft drop on the way down. It seems like it would be close to impossible to find once it was thrown overboard but maybe that was the idea. Anyone know the inside scoop?
Well, I’m pretty certain that it was a tribute to lost friends and lost loves. She didn’t want it recovered at all.
That’s the interpretation I always had. It never even occurred to me that she might want the salvage company to find it. Rose is a (lovely) sneaky, conniving [del]young[/del] woman who absolutely loves to get one over on the “establishment.” She wanted that necklace at the bottom of the ocean forever, just like Jack and Mr. Andrews and Captain Smith and the rest.
I thought that when I first saw it as well but I really hope not. Rose was always a feisty thing but I hoped she grew out of some of it. That salvage mission was incredibly expensive and they treated her well plus she got something out of it personally. I like to think she didn’t sabotage their goal just because she felt like it. It would have had to be premeditated as well because you don’t just end up on a salvage mission in the middle of the North Atlantic with a priceless diamond in your pocket. Then again, she faked her own death and kept it for 84 years along with her costume jewelry without telling anyone so I guess anything is possible.
I would think that title would rest with the insurance company that paid out on the claim.
However, she might be able to make a claim based on adverse possession.
Well, she sabotaged her family’s safety and security just because she felt like it. She sabotaged her relationship with her mother and her mother’s peace of mind by not telling her she was still alive after the rescue just because she felt like it. She sabotaged the life she was raised to live to go ride horsies and fly planes just because she felt like it.
Or rather, for twue love, which is the same reason she tossed the diamond.
(This comes off as rather harsh, like I don’t like Rose. I adore Rose really. But she is an emptyheaded silly selfish entitled princess and doesn’t show a bit of growth on that front from beginning to end of the film.)
The way I see it: To the extent that anyone owned it at the beginning of the film, it was Cal (his ownership could probably also be disputed, too, but that’s a different matter). He freely gave it to Rose, as was his right, so it then belongs to her and not to him at all. His heirs presumably filed an insurance claim on it, on the (incorrect) presumption that it had been lost, and the insurance company (incorrectly) paid out on it. If, years after, it were to turn up, the insurance company would not have any claim on the gem itself, but they would have grounds to get the money back that they paid to the heirs.
Now, one could make the argument that the diamond was a gift in anticipation of marriage, and the laws have held that if the marriage doesn’t go through, the giver can demand return of the gift. But the engagement wasn’t ended by Rose walking away, but rather by Cal dying. One could argue, I suppose, that Rose’s conduct with Jack constituted a de facto end to the engagement, but that’d be well-nigh impossible to prove after the sinking.
Wouldn’t the law of salvage apply?
No, because it didn’t really go down with the ship; Rose had it the entire time.
But Rose pretty clearly ended the engagment. Cal didn’t die until 17 years later; after marrying another woman and having kids of his own. I can actually imagine Cal claiming he hadn’t yet given the necklace to Rose when the ship sank. He wasn’t married to Rose yet so Ruth would still be her sole heir. Wouldn’t she have then been entitled to the insurance claim (since Rose was legally dead)?
Except there were no witnesses to the gift exchange, so Cal could merely claim that Jack or Rose had stolen it – which, in fact, he did.
I find it unlikely that Cal wouldn’t have filed an insurance claim for the lost necklace; unless he was so humiliated by the whole ordeal, that he chose not to discuss the subject with anyone. Likewise, I’d be very surprised if Bill Paxton’s character hadn’t already examined the potential legal issues regarding deep ocean salvage, especially if he’s brash enough to open the safe on live TV as if it’s Al Capone’s vault or something.
Assuming insurers had paid off various claims for items lost in the sinking and were now the legitimate owners of a bunch of valuable property lying at the bottom of the ocean, they might have been financing part of the recovery expedition.
Jerry: What did you do the rest of the day?
George: I saw “Titanic”. So… that old woman… she’s just a liar, right?
Jerry: And a bit of a tramp, if you ask me.
That’s probably an assumption – 20% of the bodies were recovered, and buried on land.
Ah, I hadn’t remembered that part, and just assumed that he died, like most folk aboard. So the “gift in expectation of marriage” thing would still apply, jurisdiction depending. I guess the next logical question is whether there’s a time limit on that sort of thing (it wouldn’t be a statute of limitations, since that’s for criminal law, but something similar to that).
In the original script, they see her with the necklace as she goes to over throw it, and even though they beg her not to, she still does it, saying that she came there to “return it to where it belongs.”
Besides, it’s not like they didn’t find ANYTHING, and salvage missions go in risking the chance that they might not return with something.
As for faking her own death, can you blame her?
It’s not just in the original script; those scenes were actually filmed. The 3 disc DVD set includes them (among others) as special features w/ option commentary from James Cameron. That’s what gave me the idea for this thread.
Neither Andrews’ nor Smith’s bodies were ever recovered in the historic event; dramatically, none of the characters mentioned should have been recovered in the fictional event, either. Where’s the romance in “gone down with his ship” if the waterlogged body is dragged to the surface later? 