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PHILLIPS v. WASHINGTON LEGAL FOUNDATION

Breyer, J., dissenting

does King Diarmed’s legendary slogan, “[T]o every cow her
calf.” A. Birrell, Seven Lectures on The Law and History
of Copyright in Books 42 (1889) (internal quotation marks
omitted). Cf. Berkey v. Third Avenue Railway Co., 244
N. Y. 84, 94, 155 N. E. 58, 61 (1926) (Cardozo, J.) (“Metaphors
in law are to be narrowly watched, for starting as devices to
liberate thought, they end often by enslaving it”).

Nor can Webb’s Fabulous Pharmacies answer the ques-
tion presented. But for state intervention the principal in
that case could have, and would have, earned interest. See
449 U. S., at 156–157, and nn. 1, 2 (state law required party
to deposit funds with court, authorized court to hold the
funds in an interest-bearing account, and allowed the court
to claim the interest as well as a fee). Here, federal law
ensured that, in the absence of IOLTA intervention, the cli-
ent’s principal would earn nothing. Webb’s Fabulous Phar-
macies holds that a state law which places that ordinary kind
of principal in an interest-bearing account (which interest
the State unjustiﬁably keeps) takes “private property . . . for
public use without just compensation.” That holding says
little about this kind of principal, principal that otherwise is
barren. Nor do cases that ﬁnd a private interest in property
with virtually no economic value tell us to whom the fruits
of that property belong when that property bears fruit
through the intervention of another. Ante, at 169–170 (cit-
ing Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458
U. S. 419 (1982); Hodel v. Irving, 481 U. S. 704, 715 (1987)).
If necessary, I should ﬁnd an answer to the question pre-
sented in other analogies that this Court’s precedents pro-
vide. Land valuation cases, for example, make clear that
the value of what is taken is bounded by that which is
“lost,” not that which the “taker gained.” Boston Chamber
of Commerce v. Boston, 217 U. S. 189, 195 (1910) (opinion
of Holmes, J.); see also United States v. Miller, 317 U. S.
369, 375 (1943) (“[S]pecial value to the condemnor . . . must
be excluded as an element of market value”); United States