In the case of Nogueira v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company (1929), a Portuguese sailor was injured while unloading cargo from his ship onto the defendant's dock in Brooklyn, NY. The plaintiff sued for damages under U.S federal law which allows seamen to sue their employers for injuries caused by negligence or unseaworthiness of vessels. However, the Supreme Court ruled against him stating that this law did not apply as he was working on a dock at the time and not aboard a vessel in navigable waters when he got injured. Furthermore, it stated that even though his contract with his employer had been made abroad and governed by foreign laws; since they were operating within US jurisdiction at the time of injury, local laws applied instead.

In the dissenting opinion for Nogueira v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., joined by Justices Louis Brandeis and Harlan Fiske Stone, argued that the majority's decision was inconsistent with previous rulings of the Court. They contended that a railroad company should not be held liable for damages incurred on its property due to an accident involving one of its trains if it had no control over or responsibility for the train at the time of said accident. The dissenters believed this principle applied even in cases where a third party was responsible for operating and maintaining safety standards on behalf of the railroad company. In their view, liability should rest solely with those who have direct control over operations and are therefore best positioned to prevent accidents from occurring in first place.