Columbian Nat. Life Ins. Co. v. Foulke, 9286.
| Decision Date | 02 January 1936 |
| Docket Number | No. 9286.,9286. |
| Citation | 13 F. Supp. 350 |
| Parties | COLUMBIAN NAT. LIFE INS. CO. v. FOULKE. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Missouri |
Harding, Murphy & Tucker, of Kansas City, Mo., for plaintiff.
Wright, Rogers & Margolin, of Kansas City, Mo., for defendant.
The petition states a very simple case. The plaintiff, an insurance company, entered into a contract of accident insurance with Edward L. Foulke. While the policy of insurance was in full force and effect, Foulke died. The defendant, Foulke's widow, beneficiary, asserts that Foulke's death was accidental, and claims under the policy. Plaintiff denies the death was accidental and denies liability. Plaintiff prays the court "to declare the rights of the defendant and the obligations of the plaintiff under said policy in accordance with the provisions of section 274d of the Federal Judicial Code," being section 400, title 28, U.S.C. (28 U.S.C.A. § 400 and note).
Defendant has demurred to the petition.
It goes without saying that the petition states no cause of action unless it does so under the Declaratory Judgments Act upon which the plaintiff relies. And it is at once apparent that if that act is to be interpreted as authorizing such a proceeding as this, an amazing, a startling, evolution in procedure has come about. The theory of the petition is that any person against whom a claim under any contract is asserted may sue him who asserts the claim and obtain a declaratory judgment that there is no (or that there is) liability on the contract. Is it possible that the Declaratory Judgments Act is to be so construed?
The act was approved June 14, 1934. The full text of the act is set out in the margin.1 The essence of the act is in its first sentence: "In cases of actual controversy * * * the courts of the United States shall have power upon petition, declaration, complaint, or other appropriate pleadings to declare rights and other legal relations of any interested party petitioning for such declaration, whether or not further relief is or could be prayed, and such declaration shall have the force and effect of a final judgment or decree and be reviewable as such."
By the very words of the act declaratory judgments are restricted (1) to "cases of actual controversy," and (2) to a declaration of "rights and other legal relations of any interested party petitioning for such declaration."
1. The phrase, "cases of actual controversy," is not self-illuminating. If the words used are considered by themselves, without regard to light thrown on them from sources outside the text, the phrase might include any possible existing dispute between two persons concerning the present or future legal rights or liabilities of either as to any subject of mutual interest. There is no doubt, however, that the phrase was used to shield the act from possible attack on constitutional grounds. The jurisdiction of the national courts is restricted by the Constitution to "cases" and controversies. Const. art. 3, § 2. The phrase was used to limit the application of the act to "cases" and "controversies" in the constitutional sense. Perhaps, to be more exact, the phrase was used to limit the application of the act to "controversies" in the constitutional sense, for the phrase is not "cases and controversies," but "cases of" (that is, in instances of) "actual controversy." But the Supreme Court has ruled that the word "cases" includes all that (and more than) is meant by the word "controversies." Muskrat v. United States, 219 U.S. 346, 356, 31 S.Ct. 250, 55 L.Ed. 246.
A declaratory judgment may be had then only in a "case" or "controversy."
There have been opinions of the Supreme Court suggesting (perhaps holding) that a proceeding resulting merely in a declaratory judgment cannot be a "case" or "controversy," but the last word on the subject is to the contrary. Nashville, etc., R. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U.S. 249, 53 S.Ct. 345, 77 L.Ed. 730, 87 A.L.R. 1191. In that case it was ruled that a proceeding in a state court in Tennessee under the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act of that state to secure a judicial declaration that a state excise tax, as applied to the petitioner, was unconstitutional was a "case" or "controversy." The defendants in the proceeding were the state officials charged with the collection of the questioned tax. The sole relief prayed was that the statute, in so far as it applied to the petitioner, be declared invalid. In the light of this precedent, it cannot be said that a proceeding for a declaration that an insurance company is not liable on an insurance contract to the beneficiary under the contract after the death of the insured during the life of the contract is not a "case" or "controversy."
2. Declaratory judgments under the act also are restricted, as we have seen, to a declaration (a) of "rights * * * of any interested party petitioning for such declaration," or (b) of "other legal relations of any interested party petitioning for such declaration."
The "rights" must be those of the party petitioning for a declaration; they must be "legal rights" (that is indicated by the use of the word "other" in the succeeding phrase, "other legal relations"). Doubtless the word "legal" is not used in a narrow sense (as distinguished from "equitable"), but as referring to rights existing either in law or equity. What is not included by the word will be considered hereinafter.
The phrase "other legal relations" certainly is vague and indefinite.
The "relations" must be those of the petitioner and they must be "legal" relations.
The only dictionary definition of the word "relation" having any relevancy here is that it is "the mode in which one thing stands to another," which, of course, includes the mode in which a person stands to a thing or to another person. The relations of master and servant, creditor and debtor, husband and wife, citizen and state, lessor and lessee, bailor and bailee, owner and thing owned, these are examples of legal relations. But the liability of one to another, as on contract, in tort, as liability to the state for a crime, are these liabilities legal relations? I think they are not.
Consider a simple situation....
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