Article III, Section 2, Clause 1:

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State, between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

In contrast to a non-binding advisory opinion, a declaratory judgment is a “binding adjudication that establishes the rights and other legal relations of the parties without providing for or ordering enforcement.” 1 While the two types of decisions are distinct, they share some similarities—for instance, neither directly yields an enforceable judgment. Thus, some Supreme Court cases from the 1920s and 1930s held that requests for declaratory relief were functionally requests for advisory opinions and thus outside the jurisdiction of the federal courts.2 By contrast, other roughly contemporaneous decisions suggested that federal courts could issue declaratory judgments.3

Congress took up the issue in the Federal Declaratory Judgment Act of 1934.4 The 1934 Act provided that “[i]n cases of actual controversy” federal courts could “declare rights and other legal relations of any interested party petitioning for such declaration, whether or not further relief is or could be prayed.” 5 The Senate report on the Act stated:

The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Act against a constitutional challenge in Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth.7 In Aetna Life, the plaintiff, an insurance company, brought suit under the Act seeking a judicial declaration of its obligations to the insured defendant.8 The Court noted that the 1934 Act, “in its limitation to ‘cases of actual controversy,’ manifestly has regard to the constitutional provision and is operative only in respect to controversies which are such in the constitutional sense.” 9 In concluding that the case before it was not a request for an advisory opinion, the Court described advisory opinions as opinions on a “hypothetical basis,” in contrast with “adjudication[s] of present right upon established fact.” 10 The Court concluded that justiciable controversies under the Constitution must be concrete, as “distinguished from a difference or dispute of a hypothetical or abstract character,” and must be “admitting of specific relief through a decree of conclusive character.” 11 In Aetna Life, those requirements were met because the parties’ dispute of fact on the insured’s disability or lack thereof was “essentially the same whether it [was] presented by the insured or the insurer” and could be cleanly resolved by a court.12 As the Court explained, “[i]t is the nature of the controversy, not the method of its presentation or the particular party who presents it, that is determinative.” 13

The holding in Aetna Life does not dictate that requests for a declaratory judgment brought under the Declaratory Judgment Act should always be regarded as a “case or controversy.” In contrast with Aetna Life, in the 1998 case Calderon v. Ashmus,14 the Court held there was no case or controversy presented when a California inmate brought a class action lawsuit on behalf of all California death row inmates under the Declaratory Judgment Act. The inmates had sought a declaration that California death row inmates fell under certain provisions of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which would have affected the statute of limitations that applied to the inmates’ federal habeas proceedings challenging their convictions or their sentences.15 In a ruling that relied on the doctrine of standing, the Court cited the lack of an imminent need for the resolution of the issues presented and noted that even a favorable resolution for the plaintiff would only resolve the “single issue” of the statute of limitations, leaving the remainder of the dispute to other lawsuits.16 In light of those facts, the Court concluded that the question presented was not “concrete enough” to justify Article III jurisdiction.17

As a general matter, the Court has insisted that “the requirements for a justiciable case or controversy are no less strict in a declaratory judgment proceeding than in any other type of suit,” 18 but has declined to adopt a bright-line test for when courts may issue declaratory judgments. As one decision explained: “The difference between an abstract question and a “controversy’ contemplated by the Declaratory Judgment Act is necessarily one of degree, and it would be difficult, if it would be possible, to fashion a precise test for determining in every case whether there is such a controversy.” 19 Rather, the Court must consider in each case “whether the facts alleged, under all the circumstances, show that there is a substantial controversy, between parties having adverse legal interests, of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment.” 20 Even if a declaratory judgment case presents a potentially justiciable case or controversy, the Court is not required to exercise its jurisdiction.21

Parties commonly seek declaratory judgments to settle disputes and identify rights in private areas, including insurance and patents in particular but extending into all areas of civil litigation. By statute, declaratory judgments are not available in tax cases.22 Moreover, the Court has demonstrated reluctance to issue declaratory judgments resolving important questions of public law, especially regarding the validity of legislation.23 In such cases, the Court has strictly insisted that the controversy presented meet justiciability requirements such as concreteness and ripeness.24 Notwithstanding those restrictions, several noteworthy constitutional decisions have been rendered in declaratory judgment actions.25

Footnotes

1

Declaratory Judgment, Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019).

2

See Piedmont & N. Ry. v. United States, 280 U.S. 469, 477 (1930) ( “What plaintiffs are seeking is, therefore, in substance, a declaratory judgment that the Railway is within the exemption contained in paragraph 22 of the Act. Such a remedy is not within either the statutory or the equity jurisdiction of federal courts.” ); Willing v. Chi. Auditorium Ass’n, 277 U.S. 274, 289 (1928) ( “What the plaintiff seeks is simply a declaratory judgment. To grant that relief is beyond the power conferred upon the federal judiciary.” ).

3

Fidelity Nat’l Bank & Tr. Co. v. Swope, 274 U.S. 123 (1927); Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Ry. v. Wallace, 288 U.S. 249 (1933). Wallace was cited with approval inMedimmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc., 549 U.S. 118, 120 (2007) ( “Article III’s limitation of federal courts’ jurisdiction to “Cases’ and “Controversies,’ reflected in the “actual controversy’ requirement of the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201(a), [does not] require[ ] a patent licensee to terminate or be in breach of its license agreement before it can seek a declaratory judgment that the underlying patent is invalid, unenforceable, or not infringed.” ).

4

48 Stat. 955, as amended, 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201–2202 .

5

48 Stat. 955. The language remains quite similar. 28 U.S.C. § 2201.

6

S. Rep. No. 1005, 73d Cong. (1934), 2. See also H. Rep. No. 1264, 73d Cong. (1934), 2 (stating the intent “to confer upon the courts the power to exercise in some instances preventive relief; a function now performed rather clumsily by our equitable proceedings and inadequately by the law courts” ).

7

300 U.S. 227 (1937).

8

Id. at 237–39.

9

Id. at 239–40.

10

Id. at 242.

11

Id. at 240–41.

12

Id. at 244.

13

Id.

14

523 U.S. 740 (1998).

15

Id. at 742–43.

16

Id. at 748–49.

17

Id. at 749.

18

Ala. State Fed’n of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U.S. 450, 461 (1945).

19

Md. Cas. Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co., 312 U.S. 270, 273 (1941).

20

Id.

21

Brillhart v. Excess Ins. Co. of Am., 316 U.S. 491, 494 (1942); Pub. Serv. Comm’n v. Wycoff Co., 344 U.S. 237, 243 (1952); Pub. Affs. Assocs. v. Rickover, 369 U.S. 111, 112 (1962). See also Wilton v. Seven Falls Co., 515 U.S. 277 (1995).

22

Congress added an exception to the Declaratory Judgment Act with respect to federal taxes in 1935. 49 Stat. 1027. The Tax Injunction Act of 1937, 50 Stat. 738 (codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1341), prohibited federal injunctive relief directed at state taxes but said nothing about declaratory relief. It was held to apply, however, in California v. Grace Brethren Church, 457 U.S. 393 (1982). Earlier, in Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Huffman, 319 U.S. 293 (1943), the Court had reserved the issue but held that considerations of comity should preclude federal courts from giving declaratory relief in such cases. Cf. Fair Assessment in Real Estate Ass’n v. McNary, 454 U.S. 100 (1981).

23

E.g., Ashwander v. Tenn. Valley Auth., 297 U.S. 288 (1936); Elec. Bond Co. v. SEC, 303 U.S. 419 (1938); United Pub. Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75 (1947); Eccles v. Peoples Bank, 333 U.S. 426 (1948); Rescue Army v. Mun. Ct., 331 U.S. 549, 572–73 (1947).

24

United Pub. Workers, 330 U.S. 75; Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497 (1961); Altvater v. Freeman, 319 U.S. 359 (1943); Int’l Longshoremen’s Union v. Boyd, 347 U.S. 222 (1954); Pub. Serv. Comm’n v. Wycoff Co., 344 U.S. 237 (1952).

25

E.g., Currin v. Wallace, 306 U.S. 1 (1939); Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325 (1939); Ashwander v. Tenn. Valley Auth., 297 U.S. 288 (1936); Evers v. Dwyer, 358 U.S. 202 (1958).