Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 220

524US1

Unit: $U81

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

175

Souter, J., dissenting

abstraction. Cf. Hooker v. Burr, 194 U. S. 415, 419 (1904)
(If a contractual obligation is impaired, but the obligor is
“not injured to the extent of a penny thereby, his abstract
rights are unimportant”). The signiﬁcance of the regulatory
structure, and the issues of taking and compensation, should
therefore be considered today.

Approaching the property issue in conjunction with the
two others would, in fact, be entirely faithful to the Fifth
Amendment, for as we have repeatedly said its Takings
Clause does nothing to bar the government from taking
property, but only from taking it without just compensa-
tion, see, e. g., First English Evangelical Lutheran Church
of Glendale v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U. S. 304, 315
(1987); Williamson County Regional Planning Comm’n v.
Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U. S. 172, 194 (1985).
It thus makes good sense to consider what is property only
in connection with what is a compensable taking, an ap-
proach to Fifth Amendment analysis that not only would
avoid spending time on what might turn out to be an entirely
theoretical matter, but would also reduce the risk of placing
such undue emphasis on the existence of a generalized prop-
erty right as to distort the taking and compensation analyses
that necessarily follow before the Fifth Amendment’s sig-
niﬁcance can be known.3

3 For example, with respect to the determination whether government
regulation “goes too far” in diminishing the value of a claimant’s property,
we have repeatedly instructed that a “parcel of property could not ﬁrst
be divided into what was taken and what was left for the purpose of
demonstrating the taking of the former to be complete and hence compen-
sable.” Concrete Pipe & Products of Cal., Inc. v. Construction Laborers
Pension Trust for Southern Cal., 508 U. S. 602, 644 (1993); see also Penn
Central Transp. Co. v. New York City, 438 U. S. 104, 130–131 (1978). With
its narrow focus on a party’s right to any interest generated by its princi-
pal, the Court’s opinion might be read (albeit erroneously, in my view) to
mean that the accrued interest is the only property right relevant to the
question whether IOLTA effects a taking.