This Supreme Court case involved James Carver, the plaintiff in error, and James Jackson, Theodosius Fowler, Cadwallader D. Colden, Cornelius J. Boget, Henry Gage Morris Maria Morris Thomas Hinks and John Hinks who were defendants in error. At issue was a dispute over the demise of John Jacob Astor which had been brought to court by Carver against Jackson et al., claiming that he was entitled to certain rights as a result of this demise. The Supreme Court heard arguments from both sides before ultimately ruling in favor of the defendants on all counts due to insufficient evidence presented by Carver for his claims. This decision set an important precedent regarding how cases involving similar disputes should be handled going forward and established clear guidelines for determining when such claims can be made successfully or not.

In the case of James Carver vs. James Jackson, et al., the dissenting opinion was that a contract between two parties should be enforced as written and not interpreted by courts to mean something other than what is stated in the agreement. The majority opinion had held that certain provisions in an agreement were too vague or uncertain to be enforceable, but Justice Story argued that it was up to the contracting parties themselves to decide how they wanted their contract worded and if they chose language which could be subjectively interpreted then it was still binding on them both. He further noted that any ambiguities should have been resolved through negotiation rather than judicial interpretation since this would allow for more flexibility when dealing with contracts between private individuals.