In the case of Price, Trustee, et al. v. Gurney et al., 1944, the United States Supreme Court was tasked with determining whether a bankruptcy court had jurisdiction to adjudicate a claim by trustees in bankruptcy against stockholders of an insolvent national bank for dividends unlawfully declared and paid out during insolvency. The defendants argued that this issue should be resolved in state courts rather than federal ones because it involved questions about state law regarding corporate governance and liability of shareholders. However, the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts did have jurisdiction over such matters under Section 23b of the Bankruptcy Act as they were "proceedings in bankruptcy". This decision clarified that issues arising from bankruptcies could be handled at a federal level even if they also touched on aspects of state law.

The dissenting opinion in the case of Price, Trustee, et al. v. Gurney et al., 1944 argued that the majority's decision to uphold a lower court ruling was incorrect and inconsistent with previous Supreme Court rulings on similar matters. The dissenters believed that the bankruptcy trustee should have been allowed to recover payments made by an insolvent debtor prior to declaring bankruptcy because these payments were preferential transfers under Section 60(b) of the Bankruptcy Act. They contended that this section was intended to prevent debtors from favoring certain creditors over others before filing for bankruptcy protection, which they felt had occurred in this case when certain creditors received payment while others did not. Therefore, according to their interpretation of the law and precedent cases, these funds should be returned so they can be distributed equitably among all creditors.