In Brown v. Legal Found. of Washington, 538 U.S. 216 (2003) the Court recognized an owner's property interest in accrued earnings of IOLTA accounts. The Court further held that the appropriation of those earnings by the state constituted a "taking" and triggered the protections of the Fifth Amendment. Finally, however, the Court reasoned that "pecuniary compensation must be measured by [an owner's] net losses rather than the value of the public's gain," Brown, 538 U.S. at 237, 155 L. Ed. 2d at 395, and that since funds deposited into IOLTA accounts would otherwise not earn any interest, the owners of the funds had not suffered any compensable loss. The Court held that because "the owner's pecuniary loss . . . is zero . . . there has been no violation of the Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendment in this case." Id. at 240, 155 L. Ed. 2d at 397. The United States Supreme Court held that since the Washington program only permits deposit of funds in IOLA type of accounts where there would be no net interest benefit to the owner of the funds, the deposit of escrowed monies in such an account was not an unconstitutional taking of property. In so concluding the court relied on the concept that "the 'just compensation' required by the Fifth Amendment is measured by the property owner's loss rather than the government's gain" (at 1419).