In the 1917 case of Hendrickson v. Creager, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with a dispute over inheritance tax laws in Kentucky. The plaintiff, Judge Hendrickson of Taylor County, argued that an amendment to the state's inheritance tax law was unconstitutional because it retroactively taxed estates settled before its enactment date. The defendant, Creager, countered that this taxation did not violate any constitutional rights and was within the state’s power to levy taxes on inheritances as they saw fit. The court ruled in favor of Creager and upheld Kentucky's right to impose such taxes retrospectively under their constitution without violating due process clause or equal protection clause of Fourteenth Amendment. They found no violation since there were no vested rights involved which could be impaired by subsequent legislation; rather it was merely a question about when certain property became taxable for purposes of estate administration.

In the dissenting opinion for Hendrickson v. Creager, Justice Holmes argued that the majority's decision to uphold a Kentucky statute requiring all able-bodied men between 18 and 50 to work on public roads for six days each year or pay $3 was an overreach of state power. He contended that this law violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause by forcing individuals into unpaid labor without their consent, essentially amounting to involuntary servitude. Furthermore, he disagreed with the majority's assertion that road maintenance constituted a civic duty akin to jury service or military conscription; instead, he viewed it as an arbitrary imposition upon citizens' liberty and property rights. Thus, in his view, such laws should be subject to strict scrutiny under constitutional review rather than being automatically upheld as legitimate exercises of police power.