The Bountiful Brick Company et al. v. Giles et al., 1927 case revolved around a dispute over water rights in Utah between the brick company and local farmers, who both claimed usage rights to the same source of water for their respective operations. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the farmers, upholding an earlier decision by a lower court that had granted them priority based on their longer history of using the water for irrigation purposes. The ruling was significant as it affirmed that prior appropriation - "first in time, first in right" - is a key principle governing water use disputes under western U.S law.

In the dissenting opinion for Bountiful Brick Company et al. v. Giles et al., Justice Holmes argued that the majority's decision to uphold a Utah law requiring brick manufacturers to stamp their products with a unique identifier was an overreach of state power and violated constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. He contended that there was no compelling public interest in forcing companies to mark their bricks, as it did not protect consumers or promote fair competition but rather served only as an unnecessary burden on businesses. Furthermore, he asserted that such regulation could potentially lead to abuse by enabling authorities to trace bricks back to specific manufacturers without just cause or warrant, thereby infringing upon privacy rights protected under the Fourth Amendment.