Cite as: 515 U. S. 277 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
U. S., at 494. Will concerned an action seeking damages for an alleged violation of federal securities laws brought in federal court during the pendency of related state proceedings. Although the case arose outside the declaratory judgment context, the plurality invoked Brillhart as the appropriate authority. Colorado River, according to the plurality, "in no way undermine[d] the conclusion of Brillhart that the decision whether to defer to the concurrent jurisdiction of a state court is, in the last analysis, a matter committed to the district court's discretion." Will, supra, at 664. Justice Blackmun, concurring in the judgment, criticized the plurality for not recognizing that Colorado River had undercut the "sweeping language" of Brillhart. 437 U. S., at 667. Four Justices in dissent urged that the Colorado River "exceptional circumstances" test supplied the governing standard.
The plurality's suggestion in Will that Brillhart might have application beyond the context of declaratory judgments was rejected by the Court in Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Constr. Corp., 460 U. S. 1 (1983). In Moses H. Cone, the Court established that the Colorado River "exceptional circumstances" test, rather than the more permissive Brillhart analysis, governs a district court's decision to stay a suit to compel arbitration under § 4 of the Arbitration Act in favor of pending state litigation. Noting that the combination of Justice Blackmun and the four dissenting Justices in Will had made five to require application of Colorado River, the Court rejected the argument that Will had worked any substantive changes in the law. " 'Abdication of the obligation to decide cases,' " the Court reasoned, " 'can be justified . . . only in the exceptional circumstance where the order to the parties to repair to the State court would clearly serve an important countervailing interest.' " 460 U. S., at 14, quoting Colorado River, supra, at 813. As it had in Colorado River, the Court articulated nonexclusive factors relevant to the existence of such exceptional circumstances, including the assumption by either court of jurisdic-
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