Opinion ID: 692072
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Nature of Declaratory Judgment Actions

Text: 25 The Declaratory Judgment Act, passed in 1934, ch. 512, 48 Stat. 955 (codified as amended at 28 U.S.C. Secs. 2201-02 (1988)), created an action unknown at common law. 7 10A Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure Sec. 2752 (2d Ed.1983). Designed particularly to assist potential litigants unable to settle their rights and liabilities through then-existing procedures, an action for declaratory relief is sui generis and is as much legal as equitable. Borchard, supra note 7, at 26-28, 239. Indeed, from the Act's passage in 1934 until the merger of law and equity in the federal system in 1938, declaratory judgment actions were heard on both the law and the equity sides of the federal courts. See, e.g., United States ex rel. Guest v. Perkins, 17 F.Supp. 177 (D.D.C.1936) (law side); Texas Co. v. Wilkinson, 21 F.Supp. 771 (E.D.La.1937) (equity side). This has led a number of courts to remark that declaratory judgments are neither legal nor equitable, rather than both. See, e.g., Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. v. Mayacamas Corp., 485 U.S. 271, 284, 108 S.Ct. 1133, 1140-41, 99 L.Ed.2d 296 (1988); Hartford Fin. Sys., Inc. v. Florida Software Servs., 712 F.2d 724, 727 (1st Cir.1983); American Safety Equip. Corp. v. J.P. Maguire & Co., 391 F.2d 821, 824 (2d Cir.1968). The variety of formulations should not, however, distract one from the basic point: declaratory judgment actions are, for Seventh Amendment purposes, only as legal or equitable in nature as the controversies on which they are founded. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 57 (Declaratory Judgments); Simler v. Conner, 372 U.S. 221, 223, 83 S.Ct. 609, 611, 9 L.Ed.2d 691 (1963) (The fact that the action is in form a declaratory judgment case should not obscure the essentially legal nature of the action.). 26 Importantly, the Supreme Court has followed this principle even where, as here, the prayer for a declaration is joined with a request for injunctive relief. Beacon Theatres, 359 U.S. at 511, 79 S.Ct. at 957. In Beacon Theatres, the declaratory judgment plaintiff prayed for both a declaration that its contracts with movie distributors did not violate the antitrust laws, and an injunction preventing the defendant from bringing an antitrust suit based on those contracts. Id. at 502-03, 79 S.Ct. at 952-53. The Court required a jury trial on the antitrust issues on Seventh Amendment grounds, reasoning as follows: 27 [I]f Beacon would have been entitled to a jury trial in a treble damages suit against Fox it cannot be deprived of that right merely because Fox took advantage of the availability of declaratory relief to sue Beacon first. Since the right to trial by jury applies to treble damages suits under the antitrust laws ... the Sherman and Clayton Act issues on which Fox sought a declaration were essentially jury questions. 28 Id. at 504, 79 S.Ct. at 953. See also American Safety Equip., 391 F.2d at 824 (to assess Seventh Amendment claim, courts have looked to the basic nature of the suit in which the issues involved would have arisen if Congress had not created the Declaratory Judgment Act.). Because the declaratory judgment action is itself neither legal nor equitable, the historical inquiry required by the Seventh Amendment takes as its object the nature of the underlying controversy. To assess Lockwood's right to a jury trial in the context of American's prayer for a declaration that Lockwood's patents are invalid, we must therefore determine how patent validity was adjudicated prior to merger and absent the declaratory judgment procedure.