In the 1895 case of Haws v. Victoria Copper Mining Company, the United States Supreme Court ruled on a dispute over mining rights in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The plaintiff, Haws, had purchased land from an individual who claimed to have obtained it through a patent issued by the U.S government. However, this land was already being mined for copper by the defendant company which held its own title to it based on another federal patent. The court found that both patents were valid but covered different strata of earth: one above and one below ground level respectively; thus each party had exclusive right to mine at their respective levels without interference from the other party under common law principles of ad coelum doctrine (whoever owns soil owns up to sky and down to depths). This ruling clarified property rights regarding mineral extraction in vertically layered lands and set precedent for future cases involving similar disputes.

In the dissenting opinion for Haws v. Victoria Copper Mining Company, Justice Brewer argued that the majority's decision was not in line with established legal principles regarding mining claims. He contended that a miner who discovers valuable mineral deposits on public land has an exclusive right to those minerals and can protect this right against all others, including subsequent locators. The majority's ruling, according to him, undermined these rights by allowing another party to claim part of the same vein simply because it extended into their surface boundaries. Furthermore, he disagreed with the interpretation of "apex" used by the court and believed that any point along a continuous vein could be considered its apex if it is within vertical lines drawn from end-line points of location down through earth’s center. This would allow miners more freedom in following veins downward or laterally beyond their side-lines as long as they stay within their end-lines vertically projected.