286
Opinion of the Court
tion over a res, the relative convenience of the fora, avoidance of piecemeal litigation, the order in which jurisdiction was obtained by the concurrent fora, whether and to what extent federal law provides the rules of decision on the merits, and the adequacy of state proceedings. Evaluating each of these factors, the Court concluded that the District Court's stay of federal proceedings was, under the circumstances, inappropriate.
Relying on these post-Brillhart developments, London Underwriters contend that the Brillhart regime, under which district courts have substantial latitude in deciding whether to stay or to dismiss a declaratory judgment suit in light of pending state proceedings (and need not point to "exceptional circumstances" to justify their actions), is an outmoded relic of another era. We disagree. Neither Colorado River, which upheld the dismissal of federal proceedings, nor Moses H. Cone, which did not, dealt with actions brought under the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U. S. C. § 2201(a) (1988 ed., Supp. V). Distinct features of the Declaratory Judgment Act, we believe, justify a standard vesting district courts with greater discretion in declaratory judgment actions than that permitted under the "exceptional circumstances" test of Colorado River and Moses H. Cone. No subsequent case, in our view, has called into question the application of the Brillhart standard to the Brillhart facts.
Since its inception, the Declaratory Judgment Act has been understood to confer on federal courts unique and substantial discretion in deciding whether to declare the rights of litigants. On its face, the statute provides that a court "may declare the rights and other legal relations of any interested party seeking such declaration," 28 U. S. C. § 2201(a) (1988 ed., Supp. V) (emphasis added). See generally E. Borchard, Declaratory Judgments 312-314 (2d ed. 1941); Borchard, Discretion to Refuse Jurisdiction of Actions for Declaratory Judgments, 26 Minn. L. Rev. 677 (1942). The statute's textual commitment to discretion, and the breadth
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