224
Per Curiam
vacating Adarand II, has eliminated the sole basis for petitioner's certification in the first place.
The Tenth Circuit dismissed these possibilities as insufficiently particular and concrete to grant standing and therefore "too conjectural and speculative to avoid a finding of mootness." 169 F. 3d, at 1298 (internal quotation marks omitted). As we recently noted in Friends of the Earth, however, "[t]he plain lesson of [our precedents] is that there are circumstances in which the prospect that a defendant will engage in (or resume) harmful conduct may be too speculative to support standing, but not too speculative to overcome mootness." Ante, at 190. Because, under the circumstances of this case, it is impossible to conclude that respondents have borne their burden of establishing that it is "absolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur," ante, at 189, petitioner's cause of action remains alive.
* * *
It is no small matter to deprive a litigant of the rewards of its efforts, particularly in a case that has been litigated up to this Court and back down again. Such action on grounds of mootness would be justified only if it were absolutely clear that the litigant no longer had any need of the judicial protection that it sought. Because that is not the case here, the petition for writ of certiorari is granted, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
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