The U.S. Supreme Court case Florida v. Georgia (2020) revolved around a dispute between the two states over water rights in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin, which spans across both territories. Florida claimed that Georgia's excessive use of water from this basin was causing significant harm to its oyster fisheries and sought an equitable apportionment of the waters, essentially asking for limits on Georgia’s consumption. The Special Master assigned to review evidence recommended denying Florida's request due to lack of clear proof that imposing a cap on Georgia would improve conditions in Florida given existing Corps of Engineers’ operations controlling flows downstream into Florida. In June 2018, by a 5–4 vote, the Supreme Court remanded back to Special Master for further consideration as it found his standard requiring “clear and convincing evidence” too strict; however, upon reconsideration with less stringent standards still concluded against capping Georgia’s usage because benefits were not shown clearly enough compared with potential harms such as disrupting Atlanta’s water supply or harming state farmers.

In the dissenting opinion for Florida v. Georgia, Justice Thomas disagreed with the majority's decision to remand the case back to a Special Master for further fact-finding on equitable apportionment of water resources between both states. He argued that Florida had failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that it suffered harm from Georgia’s alleged overconsumption of shared interstate waters, which is necessary under established precedent before any potential remedy can be considered or implemented. Furthermore, he contended that even if such harm was proven, Florida also failed to demonstrate how its proposed consumption cap on Georgia would effectively redress this injury without considering other factors like Army Corps’ operations in managing these watersheds. Thus, according to him, there was no need for additional proceedings as they wouldn't change these fundamental deficiencies in Florida’s claims and hence should have been dismissed outright instead.