Blackstone tells us that “Jetsam is where goods are cast into the sea, and there sink and remain under water,” and “flotsam is where they continue swimming on the surface of the waves.” But there is a third category that the law recognizes, though one that (in my experience) hasn’t made its way into the vernacular the way that flotsam and jetsam have. What’s that category? No fair peeking.
I should note that all three terms are described by Blackstone as “barbarous and uncouth,” for whatever that’s worth.
UPDATE: Joe and Simon win!
DeezRightWingNutz says:
Suspensionsam?
October 7, 2009, 1:27 pmJoe says:
Ligan?
October 7, 2009, 1:28 pmSimon says:
lagan, which is cast off the ship with a buoy attached, for later recovery.
October 7, 2009, 1:29 pmI thought that the flotsam/jetsam distinction was between things deliberately thrown from the ship (jettisoned) and things carried from the ship by waves.
Steve says:
Unclesam, where you have to pay a fine for throwing debris in the water.
October 7, 2009, 1:29 pmSara says:
Curse you for making me look this up.
October 7, 2009, 1:30 pmSimon says:
I have this in my head as nautical lore (as opposed to law).
October 7, 2009, 1:32 pmtdsj says:
I can’t remember why I know this — I think it was from looking in Garner’s MAU — but I believe it’s “wavsom” or maybe “wavesom.”
I can’t remember what it means — maybe things that make their way into shore?
October 7, 2009, 1:34 pmTransplanted Lawyer says:
“Wetsam”?
October 7, 2009, 1:39 pmSean O'Hara says:
Detritus washed ashore?
October 7, 2009, 1:45 pmRobert Bloomfield says:
Abednego!
October 7, 2009, 1:47 pmCato The Elder says:
Spurtsam. The intermediate between the two.
October 7, 2009, 1:50 pmThe Unbeliever says:
I understand how the terms could be “barbarous and uncouth” when speaking about people in a derogatory sense, like referring to immigrants as flotsam. But how are they unsavory in legal matters, when it’s easier to use a single word for classification purposes?
(Random note: a mere 30 mintes after the original post went up, googling “blackstone flotsam jetsam” turns up this post as the 2nd result, just behind the Google Books text search of Blackstone’s Commentaries itself.)
October 7, 2009, 1:54 pmJohn D says:
Unbeliever,
When the terms are described as “barbarous and uncouth,” Blackstone is making an argument for not using slang terms. It’s like the old (so old as to become fairly obscure) joke:
From the era when swell and lousy were new bits of slang, the bling and pimp of their era.
I have no idea what terms Blackstone would prefer us to use. (Not a lawyer, haven’t read Blackstone, but I got the point.)
October 7, 2009, 2:01 pmERH says:
I believe both entered english via Arabic, perhaps Blackstone had a problem with such borrowed terms?
October 7, 2009, 2:13 pmGabriel McCall says:
I loves me some etymonline.com.
October 7, 2009, 2:56 pmRJO says:
Does Blackstone recognize the distinction between fast fish and loose fish?
“But though no other nation has ever had any written whaling law, yet the American fishermen have been their own legislators and lawyers in this matter.”
October 7, 2009, 3:05 pmtdsj says:
and apparently the whole idea of “wavsom” was simply a false memory implanted in my brain, presumably by a dream or an alien.
October 7, 2009, 3:06 pmjohnshade says:
Let’s see, there’s “ginsome,” “sinsome,” and “thensome,” if memory serves.
October 7, 2009, 3:31 pmthecabbage says:
[golf clap]
October 7, 2009, 3:45 pmwooga says:
Great, now there is a “pimp it up” BlogAd on the side bar.
October 7, 2009, 4:10 pmHugh says:
Lagan? Not to be confused with Lagaan, a Bollywood musical.
October 7, 2009, 4:18 pmzuch says:
Prof Volokh:
This doesn’t make a lot of sense (even though that’s what I thought the distinction was too).
Wikipedia characterises the two thusly:
This makes more sense, in that the intention of the previous owner is dispositive, rather than the physical disposition. Also, it accounts for the fact that things that sunk (on the high seas, at least) weren’t usually salvageable, which would make the sunken goods of Blackstone’s “jetsam” more a curiosity than a useful legal concept).
Wikipedia also mentions the third category.
Cheers,
October 7, 2009, 4:19 pmcalattnyken says:
I believe the legal significance of the terms involves right to ownership–if memory serves: flotsam is in the finders keepers section, whereas jetsam continues to belong to the ship (or vice versa).
The third term is lagan, and that belongs to davy jones.
October 7, 2009, 4:22 pmLarryA says:
There’s the category of stuff put into the sea and meant to stay there, from bouys to oil drilling rigs.
October 7, 2009, 5:29 pmDeezRightWingNutz says:
Does jetsam include goods underwater but not on the seabed?
October 7, 2009, 5:57 pmJust Dropping By says:
I wish I’d looked at the site earlier today because I actually already knew the answer to the question (“lagan”) courtesy of a friend in law school who took admiralty law.
October 7, 2009, 6:01 pmneurodoc says:
My next-door neighbor was an admiralty lawyer. With the decline of the American shipping industry over the years, not an opportunity rich field of law for US lawyer anymore.
How many law schools still offer courses in admiralty law?
October 7, 2009, 6:31 pmStormy Dragon says:
There is also a fourth category: derelict, referring to items abandoned without hope of recovery. This would include the sunken ship itself as well as any cargo remaining on board.
October 7, 2009, 6:48 pmBrad Vogel, Tulane Maritime Law Journal says:
There’s this from Peabody v. Proceeds of Twenty-Eight Bags of Cotton, an 1829 Massachusetts case:
jetsam, or goods cast overboard and sunk under water; flotsam, or goods afloat on the surface; and ligan, or goods sunk, but tied to buoys, etc., to save them
Murphy v. Dunham, E.D. Mich. 1889 is also instructive:
“goods that are a kind of sea waifs or stray; flotsam, jetsam, and ligan.‘ This coal had never been cast upon the land or shore, and hence was not wreck proper. It was not flotsam, because it did not float upon the water. It was not jetsam, because it never had been cast into the sea to save the ship; nor was it ligan, because the very definition of the word from the Latin ‘ligo,‘ to bind, indicates that it must be buoyed; but it was simply property lying at the bottom of the sea, which ‘awaits its owner.‘”
October 7, 2009, 6:53 pmarbitraryaardvark says:
neorodoc: Tulane has an admiralty program.
October 7, 2009, 6:56 pmll says:
Toothsome?
October 7, 2009, 10:45 pmgnholb says:
No where else might one find a case at law where the defendant is Twenty-Eight Bags of Cotton, or a link to Fast Fish v. Loose Fish from Moby Dick, except at this fine conspiracy.
Thank you, all. I am gone to retrieve my ligan now.
October 8, 2009, 12:28 amJay says:
Neurodoc–Where did you grow up? Every port city has a significant population of admiralty lawyers, still, although what a lot of them do is essentially employment work (Jones Act and LHWCA) rather than the sexy admiralty stuff like collision and flotsam. I clerked on the Gulf Coast, and there was no shortage of admiralty cases, between traditional shipping stuff and those related to offshore drilling.
October 8, 2009, 2:59 amMy general impression is that the admiralty bar is something of a close-knit fraternity, with a lot of very old, small firms.
jss says:
The third category is when sailors have their dinghy in the water. I forget the exact term. What is Latin for “liberty”.
October 8, 2009, 8:49 amDavid Chesler says:
This was one trivial bit of knowledge my father was proud of knowing (another was the ranking of the peerage.)
October 8, 2009, 11:43 amReading the comments, I’m confused. Is the distinction where the stuff is (floating, sunk, or hanging) or is it how it got there (thrown overboard, floated away, went down with the ship – also fell overboard.)
neurodoc says:
Glad to hear that there is still work for admiralty lawyers, but you wouldn’t say that it’s a growth area of the law, or even a robustly healthy one, would you? (Do off-shore oil rigs come under admiralty law? How about cruise ships, do owners employ admiralty types to handle passenger-related stuff, or is that mostly within the capabilities of general defense type attorneys?)
October 8, 2009, 2:01 pmChrisTS says:
Professor Volokh:
I suspect this thread has gone dry while I was without internet service, but I did want to share with you my ‘knowledge’ as a descendant of a seafaring family.
My uncle used to tell us, “Jetsam is what you didn’t want; flotsam is what you lost overboard. If it is a legal affair, tell the authorities it was flotsam.” My father usually added, “If it concerns a drowned spouse or confederate, lose some other things as well.”
October 11, 2009, 8:35 pm