In the case of Lucking v. Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Company, 1923, the plaintiff was injured while on a ship owned by the defendant company and sued for damages. The main issue in this case revolved around whether or not federal maritime law applied to navigable waters within state boundaries. The Supreme Court ruled that it did apply, stating that admiralty jurisdiction extends to all navigable waters including those entirely within a state's borders. Therefore, even though the injury occurred on a vessel operating solely between ports in Michigan (a single state), federal maritime law still governed because it happened upon navigable waterways used as highways for interstate commerce.

In the dissenting opinion for Lucking v. Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Company, it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold a Michigan statute imposing tax on vessels engaged in interstate commerce violated the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The dissent maintained that such taxation constituted an undue burden on interstate commerce and therefore should be deemed unconstitutional. It further contended that this ruling could set a dangerous precedent, allowing states to impose taxes or fees arbitrarily on any form of transportation involved in interstate trade, potentially disrupting free trade among states and undermining federal authority over such matters as outlined by the Commerce Clause.