In the 1932 case of Mintz et al. v. Baldwin, Commissioner of Agriculture and Markets of New York, the U.S Supreme Court upheld a New York state law that allowed for the quarantine and destruction of diseased shrubs without compensation to their owners. The plaintiffs were nurserymen who argued that this constituted an unconstitutional taking without just compensation under the Fifth Amendment. However, Justice Benjamin N Cardozo writing for a unanimous court held that such measures taken by states in order to protect public health or agriculture do not constitute a 'taking' within constitutional meaning even if they result in property loss with no compensation provided because it is part of police power inherent in every sovereignty to prevent spread diseases among its domestic animals.

In the dissenting opinion for Mintz et al. v. Baldwin, Justice McReynolds argued that the New York law in question was unconstitutional because it violated due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. He believed that there were no reasonable grounds to justify a complete ban on importing and selling out-of-state milk products without first obtaining a permit from state authorities, especially when such permits could be arbitrarily denied or revoked at any time by those same authorities. Furthermore, he contended that this law unfairly discriminated against interstate commerce by creating unnecessary barriers to trade and competition between states. In his view, while states have broad powers to regulate public health and safety matters within their borders, these powers must still respect constitutional limits on individual liberties and economic freedoms.