Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 228

524US1

Unit: $U81

[09-06-00 20:27:26] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 524 U. S. 156 (1998)

183

Breyer, J., dissenting

v. Chandler-Dunbar Water Power Co., 229 U. S. 53, 75–76
(1913). This principle suggests that the government must
pay the current value of condemned land, not the added
value that a highway it builds on the property itself creates.
It also suggests that condemnation of, say, riparian rights
in order to build a dam must be followed by compensation
for these rights, not for the value of the electricity that the
dam would later produce. Cf. id., at 76; Twin City Power
Co., supra, at 226–228; United States v. Appalachian Elec.
Power Co., 311 U. S. 377, 423–424, 427 (1940).
Indeed, no
one would say that such electricity was, for Takings Clause
purposes, the owner’s “private property,” where, as here, in
the absence of the lawful government “taking,” there would
have been no such property.

These legal analogies more directly address the key as-
sumption raised by the question presented, namely, that “ab-
sent the IOLTA program,” no “interest” could have been
earned.
I consequently believe that the interest earned is
not the client’s “private property.”

I respectfully dissent.