Mitchell v. Trawler Racer, Inc.

Mr. Justice Frankfurter, whom Mr. Justice Harlan and Mr. Justice Whittaker join,

dissenting.

No area of federal law is judge-made at its source to such an extent as is the law of admiralty. The evolution of judge-made law is a process of accretion and erosion. We are told by a great master that law is civilized to the *551extent that it is purposefully conscious. Conversely, if law just “grow’d” like Topsy, unreflectively and without conscious design, it is irrational. When it appears that a challenged doctrine has been uncritically accepted as a matter of course by the inertia of repetition — has…