It doesn’t have the marquee name of some of the other landmark Supreme Court decisions such as Roe v. Wade or Brown v. Board of Education, but a case of a land grant to a British subject taken away established the Federal-State court relationship that is in place today. Lord Fairfax was a British loyalist with a land grant from the state of Virginia. He fled during the Revolutionary war and his land confiscated by the state. By treaty, the land should have been returned, but the Virginia Supreme Court ruled their interpretation of the treaty does not entitle Fairfax’s successor to it. When the Supreme Court of the United States stepped in, the Virgina court argued their own decision takes precedence.

On this day, March 20, in 1816, the United States Supreme Court rendered its decision in Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee. It ruled first that the Virginia interpretation was incorrect, and second that it did have the power to review and overturn state court decisions.

The Virginia courts argued the federal Supreme Court’s power comes from the states, making the state courts more authoritative. But Supreme Court disagreed: citing Article 3 of the constitution, they traced their legitimacy from the people themselves, as opposed to from the states. The Supreme court’s ability to review lower court decisions to this day stems from this case.