The U.S. Supreme Court case Thames Towboat Company v. The Schooner Francis McDonald in 1920 revolved around a collision between two vessels, the schooner Francis McDonald and the tugboat G.F. Luckenbach, which was owned by Thames Towboat Company. The incident occurred on Long Island Sound during foggy conditions when both ships were moving slowly due to poor visibility. After the accident, each party blamed the other for not following proper maritime rules regarding sound signals in foggy weather - specifically that they failed to use their whistles as required under these circumstances. The lower court initially ruled in favor of the schooner's owners but upon appeal, this decision was reversed by an appellate court who found both parties equally at fault and divided damages evenly between them (a doctrine known as 'divided damages rule'). However, this ruling was challenged again before it reached Supreme Court. In its judgement, Supreme Court upheld previous rulings stating that both vessels had indeed violated navigation laws leading up to their collision; hence they shared equal responsibility for resulting damage costs despite arguments from Thames Towboat Co., who claimed that even if they hadn't used their whistle properly it wouldn't have prevented accident because of how close together boats were when they finally saw each other through fog.

In the dissenting opinion for Thames Towboat Company v. The Schooner Francis McDonald, Justice Holmes disagreed with the majority's ruling that a tugboat was at fault for not avoiding an accident in foggy conditions. He argued that it is unreasonable to expect a vessel to stop completely when visibility is reduced due to weather conditions like fog. According to him, if this were the case, navigation would be impossible during such times and could potentially lead to more accidents as vessels try to avoid each other without knowing their exact positions or directions of movement. Furthermore, he contended that there was no evidence showing negligence on part of the tugboat’s crew who had followed standard procedures by slowing down and sounding warnings regularly.