explaining that as a “general rule,” federal courts are barred from entertaining declaratory judgment actions where, unlike here, “a declaratory defendant has previously filed a cause of action in state court against the declaratory plaintiff” (emphasis added)
How later courts described this case
- explaining that as a “general rule,” federal courts are barred from entertaining declaratory judgment actions where, unlike here, “a declaratory defendant has previously filed a cause of action in state court against the declaratory plaintiff” (emphasis added)
- finding that Anti-Injunction Act did not bar relief because there was neither a state court action against the declaratory plaintiff nor a state court action involving the same issues as the declaratory action
- explaining that, where the three authority factors are met, “the issuance of a declaratory judgment . . . would be antithetical to the noble principles of federalism and comity”
- stating that “the factors set out in Colorado River ... are inapplicable in declaratory judgment actions.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
GARWOOD, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I concur in Judge Johnson’s careful opinion, and write separately only to emphasize *780 my understanding that we do not thereby speak to what the result would be had not “Miss Hurdle, in essence, abandoned” her “state case” and “waived any right to assert that her state action took precedence over Travelers’ federal action.”