In the case of Levindale Lead and Zinc Mining Company v. Coleman in 1915, the United States Supreme Court ruled on a dispute over mining rights. The plaintiff, Levindale Lead and Zinc Mining Company, claimed that it had been wrongfully evicted from its mining property by defendant William H. Coleman who asserted ownership based on an earlier patent issued by the U.S government for his own claim overlapping with that of Levindale's. The court held that even though there was indeed an overlap between two patented claims due to inaccurate surveys conducted at different times, priority should be given to the first valid patentee (Coleman), unless it could be proven they knew about this error when making their claim - which wasn't demonstrated here. Therefore, despite later discovery of surveying errors leading to overlaps in land patents granted by US Government Land Office officials years apart; without proof of fraud or mistake at time original patent was obtained – subsequent conflicting patents do not affect rights under prior ones.

In the dissenting opinion for Levindale Lead and Zinc Mining Company v. Coleman, it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold a Kansas law prohibiting corporations from owning agricultural land violated both due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The justice disagreed with the majority's view that this prohibition served a legitimate public purpose, arguing instead that it arbitrarily discriminated against corporations without any rational basis. He contended there was no evidence suggesting corporate ownership of farmland posed any threat to public welfare or state interests in preserving family farms or preventing monopoly control over agriculture. Furthermore, he asserted such laws should be subject to strict scrutiny because they infringed on fundamental property rights guaranteed by Constitution. Therefore, unless states could demonstrate compelling reasons for these restrictions and show they were narrowly tailored to achieve their objectives, they should be deemed unconstitutional.