Treasure Salvors and the state of Florida entered into a series of four annual contracts governing the salvage of the Nuestra Senora de Atocha. The Atocha is a Spanish galleon that sank in 1622, carrying a treasure now worth well over $250 million.

Both parties had contracted under the impression that the seabed on which the Atocha lay was land owned by Florida. Treasure Salvors agreed to relinquish 25 percent of the items recovered in return for the right to salvage on state lands. In accordance with these contracts, Treasure Salvors delivered to Florida its share of the salvaged artifacts.

Subsequently the U.S. Supreme Court held that the part of the continental shelf on which the Atocha was resting had never been owned by Florida.

Treasure Salvors then brought suit to rescind the contracts and to recover the artifacts it had delivered to the state of Florida. Should Treasure Salvors prevail?