In Thompson v. Darden (1904), the U.S Supreme Court dealt with a dispute over land ownership in Florida. The plaintiff, Thompson, claimed that he had purchased the disputed property from an individual who had received it through a Spanish land grant before Florida became part of the United States. However, this claim was contested by Darden who asserted that he owned the property based on a subsequent purchase from another party after Florida's incorporation into America. The court ruled in favor of Darden stating that under US law and policy regarding territorial acquisitions, previous foreign grants were not automatically recognized unless they were validated by Congress or treaty provisions - which wasn't done for this particular Spanish grant. Therefore, any subsequent sale of such lands without validation would be considered invalid and unenforceable.

In the dissenting opinion for Thompson v. Darden, it was argued that the court majority had erred in its interpretation of Alabama's state law regarding property rights and inheritance. The dissenting justices believed that under Alabama law, a widow should have been entitled to her deceased husband's estate if he died without leaving a will or any direct heirs. They disagreed with the majority’s decision to uphold lower courts' rulings which denied Mrs. Thompson her claim on Mr. Darden’s estate based on an alleged verbal agreement between them before his death, arguing instead that such agreements were not legally binding according to state laws at the time and thus could not be used as grounds for denying Mrs.Thompson her rightful share of Mr.Darden's property after his death.