In the case of French-Glenn Live Stock Company v. Colwell in 1901, the United States Supreme Court ruled on a dispute over land ownership and grazing rights in Oregon. The French-Glen Livestock Company claimed that they had exclusive rights to graze their cattle on certain public lands based on an alleged agreement with local Native American tribes. However, these claims were disputed by another rancher named Colwell who also wanted to use the land for his own livestock operations. The court ultimately sided with Colwell, ruling that no such exclusive grazing rights existed because all unreserved public lands are free and open to all citizens equally under U.S law for grazing purposes regardless of any informal agreements made with native tribes.

The dissenting opinion in the French-Glenn Live Stock Company v. Colwell case argued that the majority's decision was incorrect because it failed to properly interpret and apply relevant laws regarding water rights. The dissent believed that under Nevada law, which should have been applied in this case, the right to use water from a public stream is not dependent on ownership of riparian land but rather on prior appropriation for beneficial use. Therefore, French-Glenn Live Stock Company’s earlier diversion and continuous usage of water for irrigation purposes gave them superior rights over Colwell who later acquired adjacent lands but did not put the waters into beneficial use until much later. The dissent also criticized the majority's reliance on English common law principles which they deemed inappropriate given differing geographical conditions between arid western states like Nevada and wetter regions where these principles originated from.