Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-1702_h315.pdf
Page Number: 34

Cite as:  587 U. S. ____ (2019) 

15 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

any  event,  any  ambiguity  or  imprecision  does  not  justify 
resolving  the  case  against  respondents  at  the  motion-to-
dismiss  stage.    To  the  extent  the  majority  has  doubts 
about  respondents’  complaint—or  factual  or  state-law 
issues  that  may  bear  upon  the  existence  of  a  property 
interest—the more prudent course would be to vacate and 
remand  for  the  lower  courts  to  consider  those  matters 
more  fully.    In  any  event,  as  I  have  explained,  the  best 
course of all would be to affirm. 

B 
  More fundamentally, the majority’s opinion erroneously 
fixates on a type of case that is not before us: one in which 
a private entity simply enters the marketplace and is then 
subject  to  government  regulation.    The  majority  swings 
hard at the wrong pitch. 
  The majority focuses on Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison 
Co., 419 U. S. 345 (1974), which is a paradigmatic example 
of  a  line  of  cases  that  reject  §1983  liability  for  private 
actors that simply operate against a regulatory backdrop.  
Jackson  emphasized  that  the  “fact  that  a  business  is 
subject  to  state  regulation  does  not  by  itself  convert  its 
action into that of the State.”  Id., at 350; accord, ante, at 
12.    Thus,  the  fact  that  a  utility  company  entered  the 
marketplace  did  not  make  it  a  state  actor,  even  if  it  was 
highly  regulated.    See  Jackson,  419  U. S.,  at  358;  accord, 

—————— 

agreement “requires Time Warner to set aside” the channels, id., at 22.  
While  the  complaint  does  not  use  the  words  “property  interest,”  those 
allegations  can  be  read  to  include  the  idea  that  whatever  was  “set 
aside”  or  “dedicate[d],”  id.,  at  20,  22,  qualified  as  a  sufficient  City 
property  interest  to  support  respondents’  assertion  of  a  public  forum.  
Cf. People v. Brooklyn & Queens Transit Corp., 273 N. Y. 394, 400–401, 
7 N. E. 2d 833, 835 (1937) (discussing dedications of property to public 
use);  cf.  also  Denver  Area  Ed.  Telecommunications  Consortium,  Inc.  v. 
FCC,  518  U. S.  727,  794  (1996)  (Kennedy,  J.,  concurring  in  part,  con-
curring  in  judgment  in  part,  and  dissenting  in  part)  (noting  this 
theory).