Cite as: 533 U. S. 606 (2001)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
particular time, that time being the moment when the relevant property interest is alienated from its owner.1
Precise specification of the moment a taking occurred and of the nature of the property interest taken is necessary in order to determine an appropriately compensatory remedy. For example, the amount of the award is measured by the value of the property at the time of taking, not the value at some later date. Similarly, interest on the award runs from that date. Most importantly for our purposes today, it is the person who owned the property at the time of the taking that is entitled to the recovery. See, e. g., Danforth v. United States, 308 U. S. 271, 284 (1939) ("For the reason that compensation is due at the time of taking, the owner at that time, not the owner at an earlier or later date, receives the payment"). The rationale behind that rule is true whether the transfer of ownership is the result of an arm's-length negotiation, an inheritance, or the dissolution of a bankrupt debtor. Cf. United States v. Dow, 357 U. S. 17, 20-21 (1958).2
1 A regulation that goes so "far" that it violates the Takings Clause may give rise to an award of compensation or it may simply be invalidated as it would be if it violated any other constitutional principle (with the consequence that the State must choose between adopting a new regulatory scheme that provides compensation or forgoing regulation). While some recent Court opinions have focused on the former remedy, Justice Holmes appears to have had a regime focusing on the latter in mind in the opinion that began the modern preoccupation with "regulatory takings." See Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 414 (1922) (because the statute in question takes private property without just compensation "the act cannot be sustained").
2 The Court argues, ante, at 628, that a regulatory taking is different from a direct state appropriation of property and that the rules this Court has developed for identifying the time of the latter do not apply to the former. This is something of an odd conclusion, in that the entire rationale for allowing compensation for regulations in the first place is the somewhat dubious proposition that some regulations go so "far" as to become the functional equivalent of a direct taking. Ultimately, the Court's regulations-are-different principle rests on the confusion of two dates: the time an injury occurs and the time a claim for compensation for that injury becomes cognizable in a judicial proceeding. That we require plaintiffs making the claim that a regulation is the equivalent of a taking to go
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