Cite as: 524 U. S. 498 (1998)
Breyer, J., dissenting
main but also certain "takings" through regulation can require "compensation" under the Clause. See, e. g., Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 415 (1922) ("[W]hile property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking"); Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U. S. 1003 (1992) (land-use regulation that deprives owner of all economically beneficial use of property constitutes taking); Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n, 483 U. S. 825 (1987) (public easement across property may constitute taking). But these precedents concern the taking of interests in physical property.
The Court has also made clear that the Clause can apply to monetary interest generated from a fund into which a private individual has paid money. Webb's Fabulous Pharmacies, Inc. v. Beckwith, 449 U. S. 155 (1980). But the monetary interest at issue there arose out of the operation of a specific, separately identifiable fund of money. And the government took that interest for itself. Here there is no specific fund of money; there is only a general liability; and that liability runs not to the Government, but to third parties. Cf., e. g., Armstrong, supra, at 48 (Government destroyed liens "for its own advantage"); Connolly v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, 475 U. S. 211, 225 (1986) (no taking where "the Government does not physically invade or permanently appropriate any . . . assets for its own use" (emphasis added)).
The Court in two cases has arguably acted as if the Takings Clause might apply to the creation of a general liability. Connolly, supra; Concrete Pipe & Products of Cal., Inc. v. Construction Laborers Pension Trust for Southern Cal., 508 U. S. 602 (1993). But in the first of those cases, the Court said that the Takings Clause had not been violated, in part because "the Government does not physically invade or permanently appropriate any . . . assets for its own use." Connolly, 475 U. S., at 225. It also rejected the position that a
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