Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/398/427/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 04:02:51+00:00

Document:
Appellants had requested an injunction to have the names of Communist Party candidates placed on the ballot in Minnesota for the 1968 election, which was granted. After the election the Federal District Court, finding no present case or controversy, denied appellant's request for a declaratory judgment striking down the Communist Control Act, on which the state authorities had relied in refusing ballot placement. Appellants brought a direct appeal to this Court under 28 U.S.C. § 1253, which permits an "appeal to the Supreme Court from an order granting or denying . . . an interlocutory or permanent injunction. . . ."
Held: An order granting or denying only a declaratory judgment may not be appealed to this Court under § 1253. Rockefeller v. Catholic Medical Center, 397 U. S. 820.
300 F.Supp. 1145, vacated and remanded.
"rights, privileges, and immunities attendant upon legal bodies created under the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States or any political subdivision thereof. . . ."
court ordered that the names of the appellant candidates be placed on the November 1968 ballot. 290 F.Supp. 642. The candidates received the votes of 415 Minnesotans in that election.
After the election, the appellants moved to amend the complaint, alleging that the Communist Party intended to run candidates in future elections in Minnesota and, on information and belief, that Minnesota would adhere to its position that the Communist Control Act barred placing these candidates on the ballot. The District Court allowed the amendment of the complaint. It held that the prayer for injunctive relief, which referred only to the 1968 election and requested no injunction as to future conduct, had been rendered moot by the passing of that election. As to the prayer for a declaratory judgment striking down the Communist Control Act, the court found no present case or controversy. In the court's view, it was not sufficiently certain that the Communist Party would run candidates in the future or that Minnesota would adhere to its construction of the federal statute, to take the case out of the realm of the hypothetical. It therefore dismissed the complaint. 300 F.Supp. 1145.
or denying . . . an interlocutory or permanent injunction." We noted probable jurisdiction, 396 U.S. 1000. The appellees have persisted in their claim that the Court lacks jurisdiction to consider this appeal, and, after hearing oral argument, we have concluded that they are right.
The order appealed from does no more than deny the appellants a declaratory judgment striking down the Communist Control Act. The only injunction ever requested by the appellants was one ordering the names of the Communist Party candidates to be placed on the ballot for the November, 1968, election. That injunction was granted, and no appeal was taken by the state officials. As is plain from the opening words of its opinion in the present proceeding, the District Court recognized that no request for injunctive relief was before it: "We concern ourselves here with the propriety of entertaining that portion of plaintiffs' complaint seeking declaratory relief. . . ." 300 F.Supp. at 1146.
fresh order dismissing the complaint, thus affording the appellants an opportunity to take a timely appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
48 Stat. 955, 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201-2202.
The early history of the three-judge-court statute, then § 266 of the Judicial Code, is summarized in Goldstein v. Cox, 396 U. S. 471, 396 U. S. 476-477. The 1937 and 1948 amendments, both of which made substantial changes in the statute, appear at 50 Stat. 752 and 62 Stat. 968, respectively.
One commentator has argued for the broader construction on grounds of policy and logical symmetry, see Currie, The Three-Judge District Court in Constitutional Litigation, 32 U.Chi.L.Rev. 1, 13-20, but those arguments should be directed to Congress, rather than the courts.
Rockefeller v. Catholic Medical Center, supra; Stamler v. Willis, 393 U. S. 407; Moody v. Flowers, 387 U. S. 97; Phillips v. United States, supra.
I agree with the District Court that the case is too hypothetical to qualify as a "case" or "controversy" within the meaning of Article III, and I would affirm. I do not, however, share the aversion to 28 U.S.C. § 1253 which the Court's opinion reflects. I would be hospitable to its aim and purpose, as my dissent in Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U. S. 111, 382 U. S. 129, indicates. The declaratory judgment is, I think, "an order granting or denying . . . an . . . injunction" within the meaning of § 1253.
"whenever the operation of a statutory scheme may be immediately disrupted before a final judicial determination of the validity of the trial court's order can be obtained."
Id. at 372 U. S. 155.
§ 1253 and the meaning of "an order granting or denying . . . an . . . injunction." The declaratory judgment may well contain a "thou shalt not" as commanding as any injunction. Or its refusal may be as definitive an adjudication as the refusal of an injunction. Ordinarily, a declaratory judgment will result in precisely the same interference with and disruption of state proceedings that the longstanding policy limiting injunctions was designed to avoid.
Where, as here, the three-judge court was properly convened, I would think that any action it took, which was denying or granting an injunction or its equivalent, would be properly here under 28 U.S.C. § 1253.

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