In the case of Cunningham v. Macon & Brunswick Railroad Company, 1894, the U.S Supreme Court ruled in favor of Cunningham. The dispute arose when a railroad company failed to pay its bondholders due to financial difficulties and instead offered them stock as compensation. One such bondholder was Cunningham who rejected this offer and sued for payment in gold as per their original agreement with the company. The lower courts initially sided with the railroad company but on appeal, it was found that they were indeed liable for paying back their debts in full regardless of their financial situation at that time or any subsequent arrangements made without consent from all parties involved. This ruling upheld creditors' rights over debtors trying to evade repayment obligations by altering terms unilaterally.

In the dissenting opinion for Cunningham v. Macon & Brunswick Railroad Company, it was argued that the majority's decision to dismiss the case based on a lack of jurisdiction was incorrect. The dissenting justices believed that there were substantial federal questions involved in this case which warranted Supreme Court review. They contended that because the railroad company had been created by an act of Congress and its property rights were derived from federal law, any dispute involving these property rights inherently raised a federal question. Furthermore, they disagreed with the majority's interpretation of "colorable" claims under removal statutes as requiring more than just a plausible claim under state law but also necessitating some additional unique feature or complexity related to federal law or policy. In their view, this unnecessarily restricted access to federal courts and undermined principles of judicial economy by potentially forcing litigants into multiple rounds of litigation in different forums over essentially identical issues.