CHAPTER 19 STATUTORY BASIS AND REQUIREMENTS OF DECLARATORY JUDGMENT ACTIONS

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Publication year: 2018

A. The Federal Declaratory Judgment Act

Generally, the Declaratory Judgment Act offers a procedure for litigants to seek judicial guidance on whether their actions violate any laws.

The Declaratory Judgment Act offers a unique mechanism by which advocates may seek to remedy ongoing violations of statutory or constitutional provisions. The Act may authorize broad-based declaratory and injunctive relief without resort to class action procedures. Distinctive features of the Act:

• Allow prospective defendants to sue to establish their nonliability, and

• Afford a party threatened with liability an opportunity for adjudication before its adversary commences litigation.

However, the statute makes no express reference to, and creates no special preference for, the resolution of such "anticipatory" disputes. A party need not be a prospective defendant in order to bring an action under the Act. Clearly, however, the unique declaratory form of relief created by the statute was intended to resolve pending or threatened controversies before the need for coercive intervention was required. Section 1 of the Act provides, in relevant part:

In a case of actual controversy within its jurisdiction, . . . any court of the United States . . . may declare the rights and other legal relations of any interested party seeking such declaration, whether or not further relief is or could be sought. Any such declaration shall have the force and effect of a final judgment and shall be reviewable as such.

The availability of declaratory relief was intended to offer a milder alternative to the general injunction remedy. Yet, section 2 of the Act specifies that "[f]urther necessary or proper relief based upon a declaratory judgment or decree may be granted, after reasonable notice and hearing, against any adverse party whose rights have been determined by such judgment." Such relief may include damages or injunctive remedies, which are considered ancillary to the enforcement of the declaratory judgment.

"Case or Controversy" and Jurisdictional Requirements

A party seeking declaratory relief under the statute must present an "actual controversy" in order to satisfy the "case or controversy" requirement of Article III. The Declaratory Judgment Act was not intended as a device for rendering mere advisory opinions. The case must involve a controversy that is substantial and concrete, must touch the legal relations of parties with adverse interests, and must be subject to...