Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-840_6jfm.pdf
Page Number: 11.0

8 

CALIFORNIA v. TEXAS 

Opinion of the Court 

judgment on count I as to §5000A(a)); 352 F. Supp. 3d, at
690 (severing and entering partial final judgment on count 
I).
  Remedies,  however,  ordinarily  “operate  with  respect  to
specific  parties.”  Murphy  v.  National  Collegiate  Athletic 
Assn.,  584  U. S.  ___,  ___  (2018)  (THOMAS,  J.,  concurring)
(slip op., at 3) (internal quotation marks omitted).  In the 
absence of any specific party, they do not simply operate “on 
legal rules in the abstract.”  Ibid. (internal quotation marks
omitted);  see  also  Mellon,  262  U. S.,  at  488  (“If  a  case  for 
preventive relief be presented, the court enjoins, in effect,
not the execution of the statute, but the acts of the official, 
the statute notwithstanding”).

This  suit  makes  clear  why  that  is  so.  The  Declaratory
Judgment Act, 28 U. S. C. §2201, alone does not provide a 
court with jurisdiction.  See Skelly Oil Co. v. Phillips Petro-
leum Co., 339 U. S. 667, 671–672 (1950); R. Fallon, J. Man-
ning,  D.  Meltzer,  &  D.  Shapiro,  Hart  and  Wechsler’s  The
Federal Courts and the Federal System 841 (7th ed. 2015) 
(that Act does “not confe[r ] jurisdiction over declaratory ac-
tions  when  the  underlying  dispute  could  not otherwise  be 
heard in federal court”); see also Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 
497,  506  (1961)  (“[T]he  declaratory  judgment  device  does 
not . . . permit litigants to invoke the power of this Court to 
obtain constitutional rulings in advance of necessity”).  In-
stead, just like suits for every other type of remedy, declar-
atory-judgment  actions  must  satisfy  Article  III’s  case-or-
controversy requirement.  See MedImmune, Inc. v. Genen-
tech, Inc., 549 U. S. 118, 126–127 (2007).  At a minimum, 
this means that the dispute must “be ‘real and substantial’ 
and ‘admit of specific relief through a decree of a conclusive 
character, as distinguished from an opinion advising what 
the law would be upon a hypothetical state of facts.’ ”  Id., 
at  127  (alteration  omitted).  Thus,  to  satisfy  Article  III 
standing, we must look elsewhere to find a remedy that will
redress the individual plaintiffs’ injuries.