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16 (1870). The Munsingwear remedy, like its vacatur kin, developed from “this equitable tradition.” Bancorp, 513 U. S., at 25.

As an equitable remedy, vacatur “is not granted as a matter of course.” Salazar v. Buono, 559 U. S. 700, 714 (2010) (opinion of Kennedy, J.). Instead, precisely “[b]ecause [vacatur] is rooted in equity, the decision whether to vacate turns on ‘the conditions and circumstances of the particular case.’ ” Azar v. Garza, 584 U. S. 726, 729 (2018) (per curiam) (quoting United States v. Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien Gesellschaft, 239 U. S. 466, 478 (1916)). Per historical tradition, a court that is asked to exercise its equitable authority to vacate a lower court’s judgment must determine, in essence, whether it is “most consonant to justice” for the judgment to “remain undisturbed” or be vacated. South Spring Hill Gold Mining Co. v. Amador Medean Gold Mining Co., 145 U. S. 300, 301–302 (1892) (emphasis deleted).

Because mootness and vacatur involve different legal analyses, see Part I, supra, I think courts should address them separately. Moreover, at least in theory if not in practice, vacatur does not—and cannot—automatically follow from mootness.

For one thing, automatic vacatur plainly flouts the requirement of an individualized, circumstance-driven fairness evaluation, which, as I have explained, is the hallmark of an equitable remedy. “The essence of equity jurisdiction has been the power … to do equity and to mould each decree to the necessities of the particular case.” Hecht Co. v. Bowles, 321 U. S. 321, 329 (1944). Vacatur is an “extraordinary” exercise of an appellate court’s “equitable” authority. Bancorp, 513 U. S., at 26. As such, it simply cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution.

Second, and perhaps even more fundamentally, automatic vacatur is flatly inconsistent with our common-law tradition