Cite as: 524 U. S. 156 (1998)
Souter, J., dissenting
The affirmative answer given by the Court and the Fifth Circuit to the question whether IOLTA interest attributable to a client's funds is the client's property states, in essence, a proposition of state law, which is one source of property interests entitled to federal constitutional protection, see Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 577 (1972), and Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U. S. 1003, 1030 (1992). In this instance the relevant state law is said to embrace the general principle that property in interest income follows ownership of the principal on which the interest is earned, ante, at 164-166, and n. 4, and the Court treats any income generated by a client's funds like income that the client could derive directly through a method of money management or investment that costs more than it produced, ante, at 169-171.
In addressing only the issue of the property interest, leaving the questions of taking and compensation for a later day in the litigation of respondents' action, the Court and the Court of Appeals have, however, postponed consideration of the most salient fact relied upon by petitioners in contesting respondents' Fifth Amendment claim: that the respondent client would effectively be barred from receiving any net interest on his funds subject to the state IOLTA rule by the combination of an unchallenged federal banking statute and regulation, 12 U. S. C. § 1832(a); 12 CFR § 204.130 (1997); a separate, unchallenged Texas rule of attorney discipline, Texas Bar Rules, Art. 10, § 9, Rule 1.14(b); and unchallenged Internal Revenue Service interpretations of the Tax Code, Rev. Rul. 81-209, 1981-2 Cum. Bull. 16; Rev. Rul. 87-2, 1987-1 Cum. Bull. 18. The argument for the view contrary to the one taken by the Court would emphasize that salient fact right now. The view that the client has no cognizable property right in the IOLTA interest is said to rest not only on a different understanding of the scope of the general prin-
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