NOTES TO RULE 57
HISTORY: (Amended Oct. 20, 1949)
Notes of Advisory Committee on Rules.
The fact that a declaratory judgment may be granted "whether or not further relief is or could be prayed" indicates that declaratory relief is alternative or cumulative and not exclusive or extraordinary. A declaratory judgment is appropriate when it will "terminate the controversy" giving rise to the proceeding. Inasmuch as it often involves only an issue of law on undisputed or relatively undisputed facts, it operates frequently as a summary proceeding, justifying docketing the case for early hearing as on a motion, as provided for in California (Code Civ Proc (Deering, 1937) § 1062a), Michigan (3 Comp Laws (1929) § 13904), and Kentucky (Codes (Carroll, 1932) Civ Pract § 639a-3).
The "controversy" must necessarily be "of a justiciable nature, thus excluding an advisory decree upon a hypothetical state of facts." Ashwander v Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 US 288, 325, 56 S Ct 466, 473, 80 L Ed 688, 699 (1936). The existence or nonexistence of any right, duty, power, liability, privilege, disability, or immunity or of any fact upon which such legal relations depend, or of a status, may be declared. The petitioner must have a practical interest in the declaration sought and all parties having an interest therein or adversely affected must be made parties or be cited. A declaration may not be rendered if a special statutory proceeding has been provided for the adjudication of some special type of case, but general ordinary or extraordinary legal remedies, whether regulated by statute or not, are not deemed special statutory proceedings.
When declaratory relief will not be effective in settling the controversy, the court may decline to grant it. But the fact that another remedy would be equally effective affords no ground for declining declaratory relief. The demand for relief shall state with precision the declaratory judgment desired, to which may be joined a demand for coercive relief, cumulatively or in the alternative; but when coercive relief only is sought but is deemed ungrantable or inappropriate, the court may sua sponte, if it serves a useful purpose, grant instead a declaration of rights. Hasselbring v Koepke, 263 Mich 466, 248 NW 869, 93 ALR 1170 (1933). Written instruments, including ordinances and statutes, may be construed before or after breach at the petition of a properly interested party, process being served on the private parties or public officials interested. In other respects the Uniform Declaratory Judgment Act affords a guide to the scope and function of the Federal act. Compare Aetna Life Insurance Co. v Haworth, 300 US 227, 57 S Ct 461, 81 L Ed 617, 108 ALR 1000 (1937); Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Ry. v Wallace, 288 US 249, 53 S Ct 345, 77 L Ed 730, 87 ALR 1191 (1933); Gully, Tax Collector v Interstate Natural Gas Co. 82 F2d 145 (CCA 5th, 1936); Ohio Casualty Ins. Co. v Plummer, 13 F Supp 169 (SD Tex, 1935); Borchard, Declaratory Judgments (1934), passim.
Notes of Advisory Committee on 1949 Amendments to Rules.
1948--The amendment effective October 1949 substituted the reference to "Title 28, USC, § 2201" in the first sentence for the reference to "Section 274(d) of the Judicial Code, as amended, USC, Title 28, § 400."