246
Scalia, J., dissenting
the office of the clerk of the circuit court.' " Id., at 156, n. 1 (quoting Fla. Stat. § 28.33 (1977)). The appellant in Webb's had tendered nearly $2 million to a state court after filing an interpleader action, and we held that the state court's retention of the more than $100,000 in interest generated by those funds was an uncompensated taking of private property.3 449 U. S., at 164.
But what would have been just compensation for the taking in Webb's under today's analysis? It would consist not of the amount of interest actually earned by the principal, but rather of the amount that would have been earned had the State not provided for the clerk of court to generate the interest in the first place. That amount would have been zero since, as we noted in Webb's, Florida law did not require that interest be earned on a registry deposit, id., at 161. Section 28.33's authorization for the clerk of court to invest the interpleader funds, like the Washington Supreme Court's IOLTA scheme, was a state-created opportunity to generate interest on moneys that would otherwise lie fallow. As the Florida Supreme Court observed, "[i]nterest accrues only because of section 28.33. In this sense the statute takes only what it creates." Beckwith v. Webb's Fabulous Pharmacies, Inc., 374 So. 2d 951, 953 (1979) (emphasis added).
In Webb's this Court unanimously rejected the contention that a state regulatory scheme's generation of interest that
3 A separate Florida statute, Fla. Stat. § 28.24 (1977), which was not even challenged in Webb's, 449 U. S., at 158, provided that the Clerk of the Circuit Court would make "charges for services rendered," including charges for receiving money into the registry of court, § 28.24(14). These charges were not deducted from the gross interest earned, as the Court suggests, ante, at 238-239, n. 10, but from the principal, before any interest had been generated on the interpleader fund. See 449 U. S., at 157- 158. The creditors in Webb's sued to recover the entire interest that had been earned on the fund pursuant to § 28.33, id., at 158, and we held that "any interest on an interpleaded and deposited fund follows the principal and is to be allocated to those who are ultimately to be the owners of that principal," id., at 162.
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