In the case of Collie et al. v. Fergusson et al., 1929, the U.S Supreme Court was tasked with determining whether a Texas statute that allowed for oil and gas leases on public school lands to be extended beyond their original terms violated the Contract Clause of the Constitution. The plaintiffs, who were successors in interest to an original leaseholder, argued that they had a contractual right to extend their lease under its original terms and conditions. However, after changes in legislation which increased royalty rates and imposed additional obligations on lessees, they found themselves unable to meet these new requirements. The court ruled against them stating that there was no violation of contract rights as claimed by plaintiffs because when they entered into this agreement it was subject to existing laws including potential future legislative alterations affecting such contracts' provisions or enforcement. Therefore any subsequent amendments made by legislature did not infrally upon any vested rights held by plaintiff's predecessors since those were always contingent upon state law at time of execution.

In the dissenting opinion for COLLIE et al. v. FERGUSSON et al., it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold a Florida statute, which allowed for the seizure and sale of property owned by non-residents to satisfy debts owed in-state, violated due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The dissent contended that this law unfairly targeted non-residents who may not have been aware of their debt or had an opportunity to contest it before their property was seized and sold off. They believed this constituted a denial of justice as well as an infringement on constitutional protections against deprivation of property without due process of law.