 The decision was made in the case of Dred Scott, an enslaved black man whose owners had taken him from Missouri, which was a slave-holding state, into the Missouri Territory, most of which had been designated "free" territory by the Missouri Compromise of 1820.When his owners later brought him back to Missouri, Scott sued in court for his freedom and claimed that because he had been taken into "free" US territory, he had automatically been freed and was legally no longer a slave.Scott sued first in Missouri state court, which ruled that he was still a slave under its law.