In Burton v. West Jersey Ferry Company, the United States Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a ferry company was liable for damages caused by a collision between two of its vessels. The plaintiff, Burton, was a passenger on one of the vessels and was injured in the collision. The defendant, West Jersey Ferry Company, argued that it was not liable for the damages because the collision was caused by the negligence of the captain of the other vessel. The Supreme Court held that the ferry company was liable for the damages caused by the collision. The Court reasoned that the ferry company was responsible for the negligence of its employees, and that the captain of the other vessel was an employee of the ferry company. The Court also noted that the ferry company had a duty to exercise reasonable care in the operation of its vessels, and that it had failed to do so in this case. The Court concluded that the ferry company was liable for the damages caused by the collision and ordered it to pay the plaintiff for his injuries. This case established the principle that employers are responsible for the negligence of their employees, and that they must exercise reasonable care in the operation of their vessels.

Justice Field delivered the dissenting opinion in Burton v. West Jersey Ferry Company, arguing that the majority's decision was contrary to established precedent and would lead to an unjust result. He argued that under prior decisions of the Supreme Court, a contract could not be voided for fraud unless it had been induced by false representations made directly or indirectly by one party to another. In this case, there were no such misrepresentations; instead, both parties relied on their own independent investigations into the facts before entering into their agreement. As such, Justice Field concluded that even if some of those facts turned out to be incorrect or incomplete after-the-fact, they did not constitute grounds for voiding what was otherwise a valid contract between two competent parties who acted in good faith at all times.