Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/395/1/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 14:27:40+00:00

Document:
The jurisdiction of the Court of Claims is limited to money claim against the United States, and that court does not have the authority to issue declaratory judgments. Pp. 395 U. S. 2.
182 Ct.Cl. 631, 390 F.2d 894, reversed.
would have been entitled to an exemption from income taxation allowed by § 104(a)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U.S.C. § 104(a)(4). He brought this action in the Court of Claims alleging that the Secretary of the Army's action in rejecting his disability retirement was arbitrary, capricious, not supported by evidence, and therefore unlawful, and asked for a judgment against the United States for an amount of excess taxes he had been compelled to pay because he had been retired for longevity instead of disability. The Court of Claims agreed with the United States that the claim as filed was basically one for a refund of taxes, and was therefore barred by King's failure to allege that he had filed a timely claim for refund as required by 26 U.S.C. § 7422(a). In this situation, the court suggested to counsel that it might have jurisdiction under the Declaratory Judgment Act, and requested that briefs and arguments on this point be submitted to the court. This was done. The Court of Claims, in an illuminating and interesting opinion by Judge Davis, reached the conclusion that the court could exercise jurisdiction under the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201. In so holding, the court thereby rejected the Government's contentions that the Declaratory Judgment Act does not apply to the Court of Claims, and that the court's jurisdiction is limited to actions asking for money judgments. By this ruling, the court expressly declined to follow a long line of its own decisions beginning with Twin Cities Properties, Inc. v. United States, 81 Ct.Cl. 655 (1935). As the opinion of Judge Davis showed, the question of whether the Court of Claims has jurisdiction to issue declaratory judgments is both substantial and important. We granted certiorari to decide that question.
"the only judgments which the Court of Claims [is] authorized to render against the government . . . are judgments for money found due from the government to the petitioner."
United States v. Alire, 6 Wall. 573, 73 U. S. 575. In United States v. Jones, 131 U. S. 1, this Court reaffirmed this view of the limited jurisdiction of the Court of Claims, and held that the passage of the Tucker Act in 1887 had not expanded that jurisdiction to equitable matters. More recently, in 1962, it was said in the prevailing opinion in Glidden Co. v. Zdanok, 370 U. S. 530, 370 U. S. 557, on a point not disputed by any of the other members of the Court that, "[f]rom the beginning, [the Court of Claims] has been given jurisdiction only to award damages. . . ." No amendment purporting to increase the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims has been enacted since the decision in Zdanok.
The foregoing cases decided by this Court therefore clearly show that neither the Act creating the Court of Claims nor any amendment to it grants that court jurisdiction of this present case. That is true because Colonel King's claim is not limited to actual, presently due money damages from the United States. Before he is entitled to such a judgment, he must establish in some court that his retirement by the Secretary of the Army for longevity was legally wrong, and that he is entitled to a declaration of his right to have his military records changed to show that he was retired for disability. This is essentially equitable relief of a kind that the Court of Claims has held throughout its history, up to the time this present case was decided, that it does not have the power to grant.
"[i]n 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."
provisions of the act which concerns a proceeding equitable in nature and foreign to any jurisdiction this court has heretofore exercised."
81 Ct.Cl. at 658. We think that the earlier decisions of the Court of Claims and those that have consistently followed them were correct. There is not a single indication in the Declaratory Judgment Act or its history that Congress, in passing that Act, intended to give the Court of Claims an expanded jurisdiction that had been denied to it for nearly a century. In the absence of an express grant of jurisdiction from Congress, we decline to assume that the Court of Claims has been given the authority to issue declaratory judgments.

References: § 104
 § 104
 § 7422
 § 2201
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