In the 1966 case Honda et al. v. Clark, Attorney General, the U.S Supreme Court ruled in favor of Honda and other Japanese-American internees who were seeking compensation for their internment during World War II under Title II of the Emergency Detention Act (EDA). The petitioners argued that they had been unjustly detained and deserved reparations from the government. However, a lower court dismissed their claims on grounds that EDA was not applicable to them as it was enacted after their detention period. Upon appeal to the Supreme Court, it held that although EDA came into effect post-internment era, its language clearly indicated Congress's intention to provide relief for all individuals subjected to wrongful detention - including those interned during WWII like petitioners. Therefore, dismissing petitioner’s claim based solely on temporal application of law would be contrary to Congressional intent behind enacting such legislation.

In the dissenting opinion for Honda et al. v. Clark, Attorney General (1966), it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold a law prohibiting non-citizens from commercial fishing in California waters violated equal protection principles under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The dissenting justices believed that this law unfairly discriminated against resident aliens based on their nationality and immigration status, which they viewed as an arbitrary and unreasonable basis for denying them access to a public resource like fishery rights. They also disagreed with the majority's assertion that protecting domestic fishermen justified such discrimination, arguing instead that economic competition should not be used as an excuse to infrally upon individual civil liberties or constitutional rights.