In the 1898 case of Cooper v. Newell, the U.S Supreme Court dealt with a dispute over land ownership in Washington D.C. The plaintiff, Mr. Cooper claimed that he was entitled to certain lands under an old patent from 1663 granted by Lord Baltimore to his ancestor while defendant Newell argued that she had acquired title through adverse possession (a method of gaining legal ownership of property by occupying it for a long period). The court ruled in favor of Ms. Newell, stating that even if Mr. Cooper's claim on the basis of ancestral patent were valid, Ms.Newell and her predecessors' continuous and unchallenged possession for more than twenty years would have extinguished any such right under Maryland law which applied at the time when District Columbia was ceded by Maryland to federal government.

In the dissenting opinion for Cooper v. Newell, Justice Harlan argued that the majority's decision to uphold a Louisiana law requiring all sugar and rice to be inspected in New Orleans before export was unconstitutional. He believed it violated both the Commerce Clause and Fourteenth Amendment by placing an undue burden on interstate commerce and depriving individuals of property without due process of law. Harlan contended that this inspection requirement served no legitimate public purpose but instead functioned as a form of protectionism for local inspectors at the expense of out-of-state producers. Furthermore, he maintained that such laws should not be upheld simply because they were enacted under the guise of police powers; rather, they must have a clear connection to protecting public health or safety - which this one did not.