In the case of Enriquez v. Go-Tiongco, the United States Supreme Court was asked to review a decision by the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands regarding property rights. The dispute arose from an agreement between two parties: one party would provide capital for a business venture while another would contribute labor and management skills. However, when profits were made, disagreements over their distribution led to litigation. The lower court ruled in favor of Go-Tiongco who provided capital but did not participate in managing or working on the business project; it held that he was entitled to all profits because his contribution constituted "capital" under local partnership law whereas Enriquez's contributions did not qualify as such since they were non-monetary (i.e., labor and skill). On appeal, however, this ruling was reversed with U.S Supreme Court stating that both forms of investment should be considered equally valuable and thus profit sharing should reflect this equality.

The dissenting opinion in the Enriquez v. Go-Tiongco case argued that the majority's decision to uphold a lower court ruling, which held that a contract between two parties was void due to illegality, was incorrect. The dissent believed that there were no laws prohibiting such contracts at the time it was made and therefore should not be deemed illegal or void. They contended that if any law had been violated by this contract, it would have been up to authorities responsible for enforcing those laws to take action against them rather than nullifying their agreement altogether. Furthermore, they suggested that declaring such contracts as unlawful could potentially discourage future business transactions and undermine confidence in contractual agreements overall.