While most of these cases are original jurisdiction, a handful have also been decided on appeal from decisions of lower courts, usually arising from disputes between private parties.

Motion by the plaintiff, Handly's lessee, to eject inhabitants of a peninsula in the Ohio River (which was at times temporarily cut off from Indiana by high water) was denied.

The plaintiffs in the case were granted title to property improperly conveyed by the state of Tennessee north of this border.

The case involved a boundary dispute between Massachusetts and Rhode Island dating back to colonial times.

The ruling resolved a long-standing border dispute between the two states, which had nearly erupted in military clashes during the so-called "Honey War" of 1839.

505 (1860), unanimously held that the true border between the states of Alabama and Georgia was the average water mark on the western bank of the Chattahoochee River.

[10] The court noted the mutual nature of the Compact of 1802, and pointed out that Georgia admitted in the agreement that its western boundary extended north to the border with the state of Tennessee.

However, the court found that "The contract of cession must be interpreted by the words of it, according to their received meaning and use in the language in which it is written, as that can be collected from judicial opinions concerning the rights of private persons upon rivers, and the writings of publicists in reference to the settlement of controversies between nations and States as to their ownership and jurisdiction on the soil of rivers within their banks and beds.

"[12] Citing scholarly sources from Europe, American case law (such as Handly's Lessee v. Anthony, 18 U. S. 374 (1820)), and other cessions between states and the United States, the court concluded that the Compact of 1802 did not mean either low-water mark claimed by Alabama,[13] or the high-water mark, as claimed by Georgia.

39 (1871), was a 6-3 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that if a governor has discretion in the conduct of the election, the legislature is bound by his action and cannot undo the results based on fraud.

He then filed his report with the Supreme Court recommending that all of the disputed area be declared part of the State of Tennessee.

Nordbye heard evidence and was presented exhibits and maps which showed that the migration of the Mississippi River northward and west continued until about 1912.

The Supreme Court affirmed this finding, quoting from its opinion in an earlier dispute between the same states where it had held: It is settled beyond the possibility of dispute that, where running streams are the boundaries between States, the same rule applies as between private proprietors, namely, that, when the bed and channel are changed by the natural and gradual processes known as erosion and accretion, the boundary follows the varying course of the stream; while, if the stream from any cause, natural or artificial, suddenly leaves its old bed and forms a new one, by the process known as an avulsion, the resulting change of channel works no change of boundary, which remains in the middle of the old channel, although no water may be flowing in it, and irrespective of subsequent changes in the new channel.

[20]Nordbye was then further authorized to engage surveyors to determine the exact line of the boundary, with the states to split the cost.

the body of land given identification in the evidence as "Beaver Island" is hereby confirmed as against Missouri and decreed to exist in Illinois.

right claimed by Missouri to each of the two bodies of land given identification severally in the evidence as "Cottonwoods" and "Roth Island" is hereby sustained as against Illinois and decreed to exist in Missouri.New Hampshire v. Maine, 426 U.S. 363 (1977), held that the boundary between the states of New Hampshire and Maine was fixed by the 1740 decree of King George II of Great Britain.

In this case, the court decided the exact border within the Savannah River and whether islands should be a part of Georgia or South Carolina.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed, finding the land to be in Louisiana.