Cite as: 523 U. S. 653 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
Co., 339 U. S. 667 (1950), which held that a declaratory action asserting a federal defense to a nonfederal claim was not a "civil actio[n] arising under the . . . laws . . . of the United States" within the meaning of the federal-question jurisdiction statute, 28 U. S. C. § 1331. This argument makes several assumptions that we do not think can be indulged.
First, it assumes that facts which were the converse of Skelly Oil—i. e., a declaratory-judgment complaint raising a nonfederal defense to an anticipated federal claim—would confer § 1331 jurisdiction. That is not clear. It can be argued that anticipating a federal claim in a suit asserting a nonfederal defense no more effectively invokes § 1331 jurisdiction than anticipating a federal defense in a suit asserting a nonfederal claim. (The latter, of course, is barred by the well-pleaded-complaint rule, see Rivet v. Regions Bank of La., 522 U. S. 470, 475 (1998).) Perhaps it was the purpose of the Declaratory Judgment Act to permit such anticipation, see Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust for Southern Cal., 463 U. S. 1, 19, n. 19 (1983), but Skelly Oil did not present that issue, and some of its language suggests that the declaratory-judgment plaintiff must himself have a federal claim.3 No decision
3 "Prior to [the Declaratory Judgment] Act, a federal court would entertain a suit on a contract only if the plaintiff asked for an immediately enforceable remedy like money damages or an injunction . . . . The Declaratory Judgment Act allowed relief to be given by way of recognizing the plaintiff's right even though no immediate enforcement of it was asked." Skelly Oil Co. v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 339 U. S. 667, 671-672 (1950).
"[I]t has been settled doctrine that where a suit is brought in the federal courts 'upon the sole ground that the determination of the suit depends upon some question of a Federal nature, it must appear, at the outset, from the declaration or the bill of the party suing, that the suit is of that character.' But 'a suggestion of one party, that the other will or may set up a claim under the Constitution or laws of the United States, does not make the suit one arising under that Constitution or those laws.' " Id., at 672, quoting Tennessee v. Union & Planters' Bank, 152 U. S. 454, 464 (1894).
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