In Printing House v. Trustees, the Supreme Court of the United States was asked to decide whether a newspaper publisher had the right to publish a newspaper in a town without the permission of the trustees of the town. The publisher argued that the trustees had no authority to prevent him from publishing the newspaper, as the town had no laws or ordinances that prohibited it. The Supreme Court held that the trustees had the authority to prevent the publisher from publishing the newspaper. The Court reasoned that the trustees had the power to regulate the town and its inhabitants, and that the power to regulate included the power to prevent the publication of a newspaper. The Court also noted that the trustees had the power to protect the public from any potential harm that could arise from the publication of the newspaper. The Court concluded that the trustees had the authority to prevent the publisher from publishing the newspaper, and that the publisher had no right to publish the newspaper without the permission of the trustees. The Court's decision was unanimous.

Justice Field delivered the dissenting opinion in Printing House v. Trustees, arguing that the majority's decision was contrary to both law and equity. He argued that under the terms of a contract between two parties, one party cannot be allowed to unilaterally change its obligations without consent from the other party. In this case, he noted that there had been an agreement between Printing House and Trustees which provided for certain payments by Printing House over time; however, when it became difficult for them to make those payments on schedule due to financial hardship caused by economic depression at the time, they sought relief from their contractual obligations through bankruptcy proceedings rather than seeking relief directly from Trustees as required by their contract. Justice Field argued that allowing such unilateral changes would lead to chaos in commercial transactions since any debtor could simply seek bankruptcy protection instead of negotiating with creditors or attempting some other form of equitable resolution outside of court proceedings.