Court Opinion

ID: 9639822
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:49:14.755747+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:22.153079
License: Public Domain

L. HAND, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
An action under the declaratory judgment statute, section 400, Title 28, U.S. Code, 28 U.S.C.A. § 400, not only presupposes an “actual controversy”, but that the plaintiff needs its protection: the last follows from the juristic principle of procedural economy. No such action is necessary when the issues have once been joined in the main action, the judgment in which will settle the “controversy”, or will decide that there is none. That is what we decided in Meeker v. .Baxter, 2 Cir., 82 F.2d 183. Nor can the counterclaim at bar be considered as more than for a declaratory judgment, though it does ask an injunction against threatening the defendant’s customers. Such threats give rise to a cause of action only in case the party who makes them refuses to test his right in court. The pendency of the main action was already such a test when the counterclaim was filed.
Quite another reason has at times been given to sustain the practice: it was said that in this way the plaintiff could be prevented from discontinuing the main action. There are, however, insuperable difficulties in such a theory. When the counterclaim is interposed, the action is of course pending, and while it pends, there is no reason for a declaratory action, any more than for a bill quia timet, while an action of ejectment is pending. It becomes a valid action under the statute only after the main action has been discontinued; that is, it can never be a counterclaim. There is no hardship in this, for it will lie at once upon the discontinuance, assuming any “actual controversy” still remains. Besides, it is improper in any event to pervert an action, devised for another purpose, in order to get rid of a privilege one does not like. I share that dislike too; there was nothing to be said for the privilege, and it has now happily disappeared with Rule 41(a) (2), 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c. Nevertheless, the point still has an importance, because it misconceives the nature of a useful remedy. I think that the district court was right.