In the case of Oshkosh Waterworks Company v. Oshkosh, 1902, the Supreme Court dealt with a dispute between a private water company and the city it served. The City of Oshkosh had granted an exclusive franchise to the water company for thirty years in exchange for providing fire protection services at no cost. However, twenty years into this agreement, the city decided to construct its own water plant and stopped using (and paying) the private company's services. The Waterworks Company sued on grounds that their contract was violated by this action. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of City of Oshkosh stating that while contracts are generally inviolable under U.S law; however there is an exception when public interests are involved - such as provision of essential utilities like water supply or fire protection service which cannot be monopolized by any single entity through contractual agreements due to their critical nature towards public welfare & safety. Therefore even though technically breach occurred from city’s side but since it was done keeping larger public interest in mind hence court upheld city’s decision thus ruling against Waterworks Company.

In the dissenting opinion for Oshkosh Waterworks Company v. Oshkosh, Justice Harlan disagreed with the majority's decision that a city could alter or revoke its contract with a private company if it was in the public interest to do so. He argued that this violated constitutional protections against impairing contracts and undermined faith in legal agreements. According to him, once a contract is made under legislative authority, neither party should be able unilaterally to change its terms without mutual consent unless such power of alteration or revocation has been reserved by statute or implied from the nature of the obligation itself. The justice believed that allowing cities such unilateral power would discourage businesses from entering into contracts with municipalities out of fear they might later be changed arbitrarily.