Washington Ice Co. v. Webster is a United States Supreme Court case that was decided in 1887. The case involved a dispute between the Washington Ice Company and the Webster family over the ownership of a piece of land in the District of Columbia. The Washington Ice Company had purchased the land from the Webster family in 1883, but the Webster family later claimed that the sale was invalid because they had not been given proper notice of the sale. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Washington Ice Company, finding that the Webster family had received sufficient notice of the sale and that the sale was valid. The Court also held that the Webster family had no right to reclaim the land after the sale had been completed. The Court noted that the Webster family had been given ample opportunity to contest the sale, but had failed to do so. The Court also noted that the Washington Ice Company had acted in good faith in purchasing the land and that the Webster family had not been harmed by the sale.

Justice Field delivered the dissenting opinion in Washington Ice Co. v. Webster, arguing that the majority's decision was contrary to established precedent and would lead to an absurd result. He argued that a contract between two parties should be enforced as written unless there is some legal reason why it cannot be done so, such as fraud or illegality. In this case, he noted that no such reasons existed and thus the contract should have been enforced according to its terms; instead, the majority had chosen to disregard them on public policy grounds without any legal basis for doing so. Furthermore, Justice Field pointed out that if contracts were not enforceable then businesses could not rely on them when making decisions which would ultimately harm commerce by creating uncertainty in commercial transactions. Finally, he concluded by noting his disagreement with how broadly the Court had interpreted certain language of a statute in order to reach their conclusion and stated his belief that they had gone beyond what Congress intended when passing it into law