In the Nevada-California-Oregon Railway v. Burrus case of 1916, the U.S Supreme Court ruled in favor of Burrus, a rancher who had sued the railway company for damages after his cattle were killed by trains on an unfenced section of track running through his property. The court held that under Nevada law, which applied since that's where the incident occurred, railroads were required to fence their tracks and could be held liable for any damage caused due to failure to do so. The railway company argued it was exempt from this requirement because its charter was granted by Congress and thus federal laws should apply instead of state ones. However, the court rejected this argument stating that while Congress has authority over interstate commerce matters such as railroad regulation; it did not intend to supersede all state laws related with these issues when granting charters.

In the dissenting opinion for Nevada-California-Oregon Railway v. Burrus, Justice Holmes disagreed with the majority's interpretation of the law and its application to this case. He argued that a railway company should not be held liable for damages caused by sparks from one of its locomotives if it had taken all reasonable precautions to prevent such an occurrence. According to him, accidents can happen even when every possible precaution has been taken; therefore, liability should only arise in cases where negligence or lack of due care is evident. In his view, holding companies strictly liable regardless of their efforts to prevent harm would discourage them from taking any preventive measures at all since they would still bear responsibility irrespective of their actions.