Morrison v. Durr was a United States Supreme Court case that addressed the issue of whether a state court could enforce a contract that was made in violation of a federal statute. The case involved a contract between two individuals, Morrison and Durr, in which Durr agreed to pay Morrison a certain amount of money in exchange for a deed to a tract of land. The contract was made in violation of the Homestead Act, which prohibited the sale of public lands. The Supreme Court held that the state court could not enforce the contract because it was in violation of the federal statute. The Court reasoned that the federal statute was a valid exercise of Congress’s power to regulate the sale of public lands, and that the state court could not override the federal statute by enforcing the contract. The Court also noted that the contract was void from the beginning, and that the state court could not give it any validity. The Court’s decision in Morrison v. Durr established the principle that state courts must abide by federal statutes and cannot enforce contracts that are in violation of them. This decision has been cited in numerous subsequent cases involving the enforcement of contracts that are in violation of federal statutes.

Justice Field delivered the dissenting opinion in Morrison v. Durr, arguing that the majority had misapplied existing law to reach its decision. He argued that under prior case law, a contract could not be enforced if it was made with an intent to defraud creditors and deprive them of their rights. In this case, he found that there was sufficient evidence to show such an intent on behalf of Durr and his wife when they entered into the contract at issue. As such, Justice Field concluded that the lower court's judgment should have been affirmed rather than reversed by the Supreme Court as done by his colleagues in the majority opinion.