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PHILLIPS v. WASHINGTON LEGAL FOUNDATION

Opinion of the Court

Corp., 458 U. S. 419 (1982), we held that a property right
was taken even when infringement of that right arguably
increased the market value of the property at issue.
Id.,
at 437, n. 15. Our conclusion in this regard was premised
on our longstanding recognition that property is more than
economic value, see id., at 435; it also consists of “the group
of rights which the so-called owner exercises in his domin-
ion of the physical thing,” such “as the right to possess, use
and dispose of it,” General Motors, supra, at 380. While
the interest income at issue here may have no economically
realizable value to its owner, possession, control, and dis-
position are nonetheless valuable rights that inhere in the
property. See Hodel v. Irving, 481 U. S. 704, 715 (1987) (not-
ing that “the right to pass on” property “is itself a valuable
right”). The government may not seize rents received by
the owner of a building simply because it can prove that the
costs incurred in collecting the rents exceed the amount
collected.

The United States, as amicus curiae, additionally argues
that “private property” is not implicated by the IOLTA pro-
gram because the interest income generated by funds held in
IOLTA accounts is “government-created value.” Brief for
United States as Amicus Curiae 20. We disagree. As an
initial matter, this argument is factually erroneous. The in-
terest income transferred to the TEAJF is not the product
of increased efﬁciency, economies of scale, or pooling of funds
by the government.
Indeed, as noted above, the State has
conceded at oral argument that if an attorney could in any
way (such as pooling of client funds) earn interest for a client,
he is ethically obligated to do so rather than place the funds
in an IOLTA account.
Interest income is economically real-
izable by IOLTA primarily because: (1) the Federal Govern-
ment imposes tax reporting costs only on those who attempt
to exercise control over the interest their funds generate, see
Rev. Rul. 81–209, 1981–2 Cum. Bull. 16; Rev. Rul. 87–2,