The U.S. development of this word stems from the practice of moot courts, in which hypothetical or fictional cases were argued as a part of legal education.
These purely academic settings led the U.S. courts to describe cases where developing circumstances made any judgment ineffective as "moot".
The divergence in usage was first observed in the United States and the extent to which the U.S. definition is used in U.S. jurisprudence and public discourse has ensured it is rarely used in a British courtroom.
Where a defendant is acting wrongfully, but as a tactic to avoid an adverse decision, ceases to engage in such conduct once a litigation has been threatened or commenced, the court will still not deem this correction to moot the case.
As Illinois subsequently passed a law legalizing concealed carry with a state-issued license, the appeal would have been moot since the original case or controversy was no longer relevant.
The most frequently cited example is the 1973 United States Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), which challenged a Texas law forbidding abortion in most circumstances.
As Justice Blackmun wrote in the majority opinion: The normal 266-day human gestation period is so short that the pregnancy will come to term before the usual appellate process is complete.
If that termination makes a case moot, pregnancy litigation seldom will survive much beyond the trial stage, and appellate review will be effectively denied.
Our law should not be that rigid.By contrast, in McCorvey v. Hill, 2004, the case failed to proceed based on being moot, without standing and out of time.
[4] The Court cited Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U.S. 498 (1911), which had held that a case was not moot when it presented an issue that was "capable of repetition, yet evading review".
The Supreme Court held that, although the plaintiff successfully divorced in another state, her attorneys could continue to competently advance the interests of other members of the class.
For example, where an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was challenged, completion of the project construction could not be used to evade regulatory compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) as the 9th Circuit Court[6] explained: ”In the case at hand, were this Court to find the EIS inadequate, or the decision to build along Route D-1 arbitrary and capricious, the agency would have to correct the decision-making process, and ultimately could be required to remove the line from this route.
Considerations of the effectiveness of advocacy involved in the adversarial system and the possibility of recurrence of an alleged constitutional violation may sway the court.
[9] Additionally, the federal and provincial governments can ask for advisory opinions in hypothetical scenarios, termed reference questions, from their respective highest courts.