Biden v. Knight First Amend. Inst. at Columbia Univ.

In Biden v. Knight First Amendment Inst. at Columbia Univ., 141 S. Ct. 1220, 1220-21 (2021), the U.S. Supreme Court did a routine vacatur of an appellate decision due to mootness:

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Petition for writ of certiorari granted. Judgment vacated, and case remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit with instructions to dismiss the case as moot. See United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36, 71 S. Ct. 104, 95 L. Ed. 36 (1950).

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This case is cited for the solitary concurrence by Justice Clarence Thomas, who observed:

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First, our legal system and its British predecessor have long subjected certain businesses, known as common carriers, to special regulations, including a general requirement to serve all comers. Candeub, Bargaining for Free Speech: Common Carriage, Network Neutrality, and Section 230, 22 Yale J. L. & Tech. 391, 398-403 (2020) (Candeub); see also Burdick, The Origin of the Peculiar Duties of Public Service Companies, Pt. 1, 11 Colum. L. Rev. 514 (1911). Justifications for these regulations have varied. Some scholars have argued that common-carrier regulations are justified only when a carrier possesses substantial market power. Candeub 404. Others have said that no substantial market power is needed so long as the company holds itself out as open to the public. Ibid.; see also Ingate v. Christie, 3 Car. & K. 61, 63, 175 Eng. Rep. 463, 464 (N. P. 1850) (“[A] person [who] holds himself out to carry goods for everyone as a business . . . is a common carrier”). And this Court long ago suggested that regulations like those placed on common carriers may be justified, even for industries not historically recognized as common carriers, when “a business, by circumstances and its nature, . . . rise[s] from private to be of public concern.” See German Alliance Ins. Co. v. Lewis, 233 U. S. 389, 411, 34 S. Ct. 612, 58 L. Ed. 1011 (1914) (affirming state regulation of fire insurance rates). At that point, a company’s “property is but its instrument, the means of rendering the service which has become of public interest.” Id., at 408, 34 S. Ct. 612, 58 L. Ed. 1011.

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Biden v. Knight First Amendment Inst. at Columbia Univ., 141 S. Ct. 1220, 1222-23 (2021) (Thomas, J., concurring).