Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 226

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

181

Breyer, J., dissenting

that (because of pre-existing federal law) the client’s princi-
pal could not generate interest without IOLTA intervention.
That is to say, the client could not have had an expectation
of receiving interest without that intervention. Nor can
one say that IOLTA rules excluded, or prevented, the cli-
ent’s use of his principal to generate interest that would
otherwise be his. Under these circumstances, what is the
property right of the client that IOLTA could have “conﬁs-
cat[ed]”? Ante, at 167.

The most that Texas law here could have taken from the
client is not a right to use his principal to create a beneﬁt
(for he had no such right), but the client’s right to keep the
client’s principal sterile, a right to prevent the principal from
being put to productive use by others. Cf. National Bd. of
YMCA v. United States, 395 U. S. 85, 92–93 (1969) (noting
that government deprivation of property requiring com-
pensation normally takes from an owner use that the owner
may otherwise make of the property). And whatever this
Court’s cases may have said about the constitutional status
of such a right, they have not said that the Constitution
forces a State to confer, upon the owner of property that
cannot produce anything of value for him, ownership of the
fruits of that property should that property be rendered fer-
tile through the government’s lawful intervention. Cf., e. g.,
United States ex rel. TVA v. Powelson, 319 U. S. 266, 276
(1943) (no need to pay for value that the “power of eminent
domain” itself creates); City of New York v. Sage, 239 U. S.
57, 61 (1915) (city need not pay for value added by unifying
parcels where uniﬁcation impracticable absent eminent do-
main); United States v. Twin City Power Co., 350 U. S. 222,
228 (1956) (to require payment for value created by govern-
ment “would be to create private claims in the public do-
main”). Thus the question is whether “interest,” earned
only as a result of IOLTA rules and earned upon otherwise
barren client principal, “follows principal.” The slogan “in-
terest follows principal” no more answers that question than