Lehigh Water Company v. Easton was a case heard by the United States Supreme Court in 1887. The case involved a dispute between the Lehigh Water Company and the City of Easton, Pennsylvania. The Lehigh Water Company had been granted a charter by the state of Pennsylvania to supply water to the city of Easton. The city of Easton then passed an ordinance that required the Lehigh Water Company to pay a fee for the use of the city's streets and alleys. The Lehigh Water Company argued that the ordinance was unconstitutional because it violated the company's right to due process of law. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Lehigh Water Company, finding that the ordinance was unconstitutional. The Court held that the ordinance was an unreasonable exercise of the city's police power and violated the company's right to due process of law. The Court also held that the ordinance was an unconstitutional taking of the company's property without just compensation. The Court concluded that the ordinance was invalid and the Lehigh Water Company was not required to pay the fee.

Justice Field delivered the dissenting opinion in Lehigh Water Company v. Easton, arguing that the majority's decision was contrary to both precedent and sound legal reasoning. He argued that a municipality has no inherent power to regulate private corporations such as water companies, and thus any attempt by a city or town to do so must be based on an express grant of authority from the state legislature. In this case, he noted that there was no evidence of any such legislative authorization for Easton's ordinance regulating Lehigh Water Company; therefore it should not have been enforced against them. Furthermore, Justice Field pointed out that even if there had been some kind of authorization from Pennsylvania law allowing municipalities like Easton to pass ordinances affecting private businesses like Lehigh Water Company, those ordinances would still need to comply with constitutional requirements in order for them to be validly enforced - something which he did not believe had occurred here either. Ultimately then, Justice Field concluded that since neither precedent nor statutory authority supported enforcing Easton's ordinance against Lehigh Water Company in this instance, their appeal should have been granted instead of denied by the majority opinion.