John Yontz, Administrator of Jose Dolores Pacheco, Deceased, appealed to the United States Supreme Court after a lower court ruling in favor of the United States. The case centered around an 1851 land grant from Mexico to Pacheco for over 11 square leagues located in California. After California became part of the US following its admission into the Union as a state in 1850, Congress passed legislation that allowed individuals who had received Mexican grants prior to December 20th 1852 to have their claims confirmed by filing with local courts and paying certain fees. However, this was not done by Pacheco before his death and thus Yontz sought confirmation on behalf of his estate through appeal at higher levels including ultimately appealing it all the way up to Supreme Court. The Court ruled against Yontz's claim stating that since he failed to file within two years as required under Congressional law then no rights were vested upon him or his estate and therefore could not be recognized by any court thereafter.

In the case of John Yontz, Administrator of Jose Dolores Pacheco, Deceased v. The United States, Justice Grier delivered a dissenting opinion in which he argued that the Court should have held that Congress had not intended to limit its power over public lands by passing the Preemption Act of 1841. He argued that if Congress had intended to do so it would have done so explicitly and clearly stated as much in the act itself. Furthermore, he noted that even though some states may have passed laws granting preemption rights on certain tracts of land prior to passage of this federal law, those state laws did not supersede or override any authority granted by Congress under its own legislation. Therefore, since no such limitation was included within the language or intent behind this particular act passed by Congress in 1841, it could be reasonably assumed they were still able to exercise their full powers over all public lands regardless whether they had been preempted previously at a state level or not.