In the United States v. Delaney case of 1896, the Supreme Court ruled on a matter involving customs duties. The defendant, Delaney, had imported merchandise from Canada into Vermont and was charged with paying import duties based on an invoice value that he claimed was incorrect. He argued that the goods were overvalued by Canadian officials and sought to have his duty reassessed based on their actual market value in Canada at the time of exportation rather than their invoiced price. However, under U.S law at that time (the McKinley Tariff Act), dutiable value was determined by "market value or wholesale price" in foreign markets when exported to America unless it could be shown there were special discounts or drawbacks affecting this valuation. The court held against Delaney's claim stating that if Congress intended for such adjustments to be made they would have explicitly stated so within legislation; as no such provision existed within current laws his appeal failed. It concluded that while there may be instances where foreign valuations are inflated due to various factors these should not affect how American customs authorities calculate import duties unless specific legal provisions allow for it.

In the dissenting opinion for United States v. Delaney, it was argued that the defendant's conviction should not have been upheld. The dissenting justices believed that there were significant issues with how evidence was obtained and used in this case. They contended that some of the seized items had no direct relevance to the charges against Delaney and thus their seizure violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. Furthermore, they disagreed with majority’s interpretation of what constitutes as “obscene” under federal law, arguing it was too broad and could potentially infringe upon First Amendment rights by suppressing legitimate expression or speech due to subjective interpretations of obscenity. In essence, they felt that upholding such a conviction would set a dangerous precedent for future cases involving similar circumstances.