In the case of Webb, Attorney General of the State of California, et al. v. O'Brien et al., 1923, the U.S Supreme Court upheld a California law that prohibited non-residents from fishing in state waters while employed by a resident boat owner unless they had been residents for at least one year and declared their intent to become citizens. The appellants were Japanese nationals who worked on boats owned by Californians but lived outside the state; they argued that this law violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection under federal laws governing interstate commerce and immigration. However, Justice Joseph McKenna delivered an unanimous opinion rejecting these claims stating that states have inherent power over fisheries within their borders and can enact reasonable regulations to conserve fish populations even if it discriminally affects non-residents or aliens.

In the dissenting opinion for Webb, Attorney General of the State of California, et al. v. O'Brien et al., Justice Holmes disagreed with the majority's decision to uphold a state law that prohibited teaching foreign languages in schools until students had completed eighth grade. He argued that this law violated both freedom of speech and due process rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. According to him, there was no compelling reason or evidence provided by the state to justify such an infringement on these constitutional rights; it was not proven that learning a foreign language at an early age would harm children or society as a whole. Therefore, he believed this restriction should be considered arbitrary and unconstitutional.