In the case of Allen D. Brown and Greg Hayes v. Legal Foundation of Washington et al., 2002, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that a state program which took interest from lawyers' trust accounts to fund legal services for low-income individuals did not violate the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause. The plaintiffs, who had money in these Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (IOLTA), argued that they were entitled to this interest and its appropriation constituted an unlawful taking without compensation by the government. However, the court held that since clients typically received no benefit from their funds being placed in IOLTAs as opposed to non-interest-bearing accounts due to banking fees or other costs associated with maintaining such accounts, there was no net loss experienced by them when this interest was used for public purposes - hence it could not be considered a violation of their property rights under the Fifth Amendment.

In the dissenting opinion for Allen D. Brown and Greg Hayes v. Legal Foundation of Washington et al., Justice Scalia argued that the interest earned on clients' funds held in IOLTA accounts constitutes private property under the Fifth Amendment, and therefore cannot be taken by the state without just compensation. He contended that this case was not about whether IOLTA is a good or bad program, but rather about whether it violates constitutional rights to private property. The majority's decision, he believed, effectively nullified these rights by allowing states to seize interest earnings without providing any form of compensation to their rightful owners - an action he viewed as fundamentally incompatible with principles of fairness and justice enshrined in U.S law.