Opinion ID: 32178
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Trejo Factors

Text: 39 Before Wilton, the circuits disagreed as to whether the Brillhart standard or a more stringent test applied to a district court's decision to decline jurisdiction over a declaratory judgment action. Under Brillhart, a district court should ascertain whether the questions in controversy between the parties to the federal suit ... can be better settled in the proceeding pending in the state court. 316 U.S. at 494, 62 S.Ct. at 1176. Brillhart identified the following nonexclusive factors in this analysis: 40 (1) the scope of the pending state court proceeding and the nature of the defenses open there; 41 (2) whether the claims of all parties in interest can be satisfactorily adjudicated in [the state] proceeding; 42 (3) whether necessary parties have been joined; 43 (4) whether such parties are amenable to process in [the state] proceeding; 44 (5) whether it would be uneconomical or vexatious to proceed where another suit was pending in state court; and 45 (6) whether hearing the declaratory judgment action would represent gratuitous interference with the orderly and comprehensive disposition of a state court litigation. 46 Id. After the Supreme Court decided Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 96 S.Ct. 1236, 47 L.Ed.2d 483 (1976), some circuits required a district court to hear a declaratory judgment action unless exceptional circumstances were present. In Wilton, the Supreme Court resolved the circuit split, holding that the less demanding Brillhart standard applies. 47 The Fifth Circuit uses the Trejo factors to guide a district court's exercise of discretion to accept or decline jurisdiction over a declaratory judgment suit. Every circuit has a similar test, although expressed in different terms. 2 Despite the circuits' different expressions of the Brillhart factors, each circuit's formulation addresses the same three aspects of the analysis. 48 The first is the proper allocation of decision-making between state and federal courts. Each circuit's test emphasizes that if the federal declaratory judgment action raises only issues of state law and a state case involving the same state law issues is pending, generally the state court should decide the case and the federal court should exercise its discretion to dismiss the federal suit. 3 49 The second aspect of the inquiry is fairness. The circuits' varying formulations all distinguish between legitimate and improper reasons for forum selection. Although many federal courts use terms such as forum selection and anticipatory filing to describe reasons for dismissing a federal declaratory judgment action in favor of related state court litigation, these terms are shorthand for more complex inquiries. The filing of every lawsuit requires forum selection. Federal declaratory judgment suits are routinely filed in anticipation of other litigation. The courts use pejorative terms such as forum shopping or procedural fencing to identify a narrower category of federal declaratory judgment lawsuits filed for reasons found improper and abusive, other than selecting a forum or anticipating related litigation. Merely filing a declaratory judgment action in a federal court with jurisdiction to hear it, in anticipation of state court litigation, is not in itself improper anticipatory litigation or otherwise abusive forum shopping. 50 The third aspect of the analysis is efficiency. A federal district court should avoid duplicative or piecemeal litigation where possible. A federal court should be less inclined to hear a case if necessary parties are missing from the federal forum, because that leads to piecemeal litigation and duplication of effort in state and federal courts. Duplicative litigation may also raise federalism or comity concerns because of the potential for inconsistent state and federal court judgments, especially in cases involving state law issues. 4 51 The Trejo factors clearly address these three categories of issues. The first Trejo factor, whether there is a pending state action in which all the matters in the controversy may be litigated, requires the court to examine comity and efficiency. The next three Trejo factors — whether the declaratory judgment plaintiff filed suit in anticipation of a lawsuit to be filed by the declaratory judgment defendant; whether the declaratory judgment plaintiff engaged in forum shopping in bringing the declaratory judgment action; and whether possible inequities exist in allowing the declaratory judgment plaintiff to gain precedence in time or to change forums — analyze whether the plaintiff is using the declaratory judgment process to gain access to a federal forum on improper or unfair grounds. Declaratory judgments are often anticipatory, appropriately filed when there is an actual controversy that has resulted in or created a likelihood of litigation. More than one venue may be proper, requiring the plaintiff to select a forum. These Trejo labels cannot be literally applied. 52 The next two Trejo factors — whether the federal court is a convenient forum for the parties and witnesses and whether retaining the lawsuit would serve judicial economy — primarily address efficiency considerations. Finally, the seventh Trejo factor, whether the federal court is being called on to construe a state judicial decree involving the same parties and entered by the court before whom the parallel state suit between the same parties is pending, clearly implicates federalism and comity concerns. 53