In the United States v. Merz et al., 1963, the Supreme Court dealt with a case concerning property rights and just compensation under the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause. The U.S government had seized land owned by Merz to expand a dam project in Pennsylvania. While both parties agreed on most of the compensation amount, they disagreed over whether or not interest should be included from when the land was taken until payment was made. The District Court ruled that no interest would be paid because it wasn't customary at federal level for such cases; however, this decision was reversed by an Appeals court which stated that state law (which allowed for such interest) should apply instead. The Supreme Court sided with the initial ruling of no-interest due to two main reasons: firstly, there were no provisions in federal statutes allowing for pre-judgment interests in condemnation proceedings; secondly, applying state laws inconsistently across different states could lead to unequal treatment of citizens depending on their location - contrary to principles of fairness and uniformity expected from Federal Government actions.

The dissenting opinion in the United States v. Merz et al., 1963, argued that the majority's decision to uphold a conviction based on evidence obtained through wiretapping was inconsistent with previous Supreme Court rulings and violated Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. The dissenters believed that wiretapping constituted an invasion of privacy regardless of whether or not it was conducted with consent from one party involved in the conversation. They also pointed out that there were no exigent circumstances justifying this violation of constitutional rights, as law enforcement had ample opportunity to obtain a warrant before proceeding with the wiretap operation. Furthermore, they disagreed with the majority's assertion that Congress had implicitly approved such practices by failing to legislate against them; instead, they contended that legislative silence should not be interpreted as approval for potentially unconstitutional actions.