In the case of Miree et al. v. DeKalb County, Georgia et al., 1976, the U.S Supreme Court ruled in favor of DeKalb County and against a group of plaintiffs who were survivors or representatives of victims killed in an airplane crash at Atlanta's airport. The plane had crashed into a garbage dump maintained by the county near the airport runway, causing it to explode upon impact. The plaintiffs argued that Dekalb County was negligent for maintaining this landfill so close to an active runway as it attracted birds which posed risks to aircrafts - one such bird allegedly caused their engine failure leading to this accident. However, they also claimed that Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations created third-party beneficiary rights for them because FAA grants required airports like Atlanta’s to ensure safe operations without hazards such as landfills attracting birds nearby runways. The court disagreed with these arguments stating that FAA grant contracts did not create enforceable rights for third parties but rather served public interests overall; hence no private right action could be derived from federal common law here.

In the dissenting opinion for Miree et al. v. DeKalb County, Georgia et al., Justice Rehnquist disagreed with the majority's decision to apply federal common law rather than state law in determining whether a third-party beneficiary contract existed between the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and DeKalb County that could be enforced by victims of an airplane crash. He argued that there was no significant federal interest at stake to warrant overriding state laws on contracts and torts, which traditionally fall within states' jurisdiction. Furthermore, he contended that even if such a contract did exist under federal common law, it would not necessarily confer rights upon private individuals as intended beneficiaries but might instead serve public interests more broadly or exclusively benefit the FAA itself.