In Woodworth v. Blair & Others, the Supreme Court of the United States considered a case involving an alleged breach of contract between two parties. The plaintiff, Woodworth, had contracted with defendants to build a house for him in exchange for payment. After completing construction on the house and being paid by Woodworth, defendants refused to make any further payments or perform any additional work as agreed upon in their contract. In response to this refusal, Woodworth brought suit against them seeking damages for breach of contract. The court ultimately held that there was sufficient evidence presented at trial to support a finding that defendants had breached their contractual obligations and awarded damages accordingly. This decision established precedent regarding how courts should handle cases involving breaches of contracts made between private individuals or entities within the United States legal system.

In the case of Woodworth v. Blair & Others, Justice Field delivered a dissenting opinion in which he argued that the majority's decision was wrongfully based on an interpretation of state law rather than federal law. He believed that it should have been decided according to federal common law and not by reference to state statutes. He further argued that if Congress had intended for this matter to be determined by state laws, they would have made such provisions clear in their legislation or provided some other means for determining it. In his view, since there was no indication from Congress as to how this issue should be resolved, then it must necessarily fall under the purview of federal common law and thus could not be decided solely on the basis of any particular state statute or precedent.