658
Opinion of the Court
simply erects a gateway through which parties may pass into federal court; once they have entered, it does not restrict the legal landscape they may traverse. Thus if, in the course of deciding whether a plaintiff is entitled to relief for the defendant's alleged violation of a contract, the defendant interposes the affirmative defense that the contract was invalid, the court may, consistent with § 301(a), adjudicate that defense. See Kaiser Steel Corp. v. Mullins, 455 U. S. 72, 85-86 (1982). Similarly, a declaratory judgment plaintiff accused of violating a collective-bargaining agreement may ask a court to declare the agreement invalid. But in these cases, the federal court's power to adjudicate the contract's validity is ancillary to, and not independent of, its power to adjudicate "[s]uits for violation of contracts."
This would seem to be the end of the matter. Here, the Union neither alleges that Textron has violated the contract, nor seeks declaratory relief from its own alleged violation. Indeed, as far as the Union's complaint discloses, both parties are in absolute compliance with the terms of the collective-bargaining agreement. Section 301(a) jurisdiction does not lie over such a case.
The Union, however, asserts that the outcome is altered by the fact that it seeks relief pursuant to the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U. S. C. § 2201.2 It argues that in order to determine whether § 301(a) jurisdiction lies over the declaratory-judgment aspect of its suit, we must look to the character of the threatened action to which its suit would interpose a defense, which in this case would be Textron's action for breach of the collective-bargaining agreement. It relies on our decision in Skelly Oil Co. v. Phillips Petroleum
2 The Declaratory Judgment Act provides, in relevant part, that "[i]n a case of actual controversy within its jurisdiction, . . . any court of the United States, upon the filing of an appropriate pleading, may declare the rights and other legal relations of any interested party seeking such declaration, whether or not further relief is or could be sought." 28 U. S. C. § 2201(a).
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007