Cite as: 538 U. S. 216 (2003)
Scalia, J., dissenting
dial question presented in the certiorari petition. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Scalia, with whom The Chief Justice, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.
The Court today concludes that the State of Washington may seize private property, without paying compensation, on the ground that the former owners suffered no "net loss" because their confiscated property was created by the beneficence of a state regulatory program. In so holding the Court creates a novel exception to our oft-repeated rule that the just compensation owed to former owners of confiscated property is the fair market value of the property taken. What is more, the Court embraces a line of reasoning that we explicitly rejected in Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation, 524 U. S. 156 (1998). Our precedents compel the conclusion that petitioners are entitled to the fair market value of the interest generated by their funds held in interest on lawyers' trust accounts (IOLTA). I dissent from the Court's judgment to the contrary.
I
In 1984 the Supreme Court of Washington issued an order requiring lawyers to place all client trust funds in "identifiable interest-bearing trust accounts." App. 150. If a client's funds can be invested to provide a "positive net return" to the client, the lawyer must place the funds in an account that pays interest to the client. If the client's funds cannot earn a "positive net return" for the client, the funds are to be deposited in a pooled interest-bearing IOLTA account with the interest payable to the Legal Foundation of Washington (LFW), a nonprofit organization that provides legal services for the indigent. A lawyer is not required to obtain his client's consent, or even notify his client, regarding the
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