Cite as: 523 U. S. 653 (1998)
Opinion of Breyer, J.
for breach of its collective-bargaining agreement. See ante, at 661. I write separately, however, because this factual circumstance has more significance than the Court's opinion suggests. See ante, at 658-660. Indeed, in my view, if the Union had shown that a strike and consequent employer breach-of-contract lawsuit were imminent, then the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U. S. C. § 2201, would have authorized the District Court to adjudicate this controversy. Unlike the Court, I would not leave the matter undecided.
My conclusion flows from the following two legal propositions: Proposition One. The Declaratory Judgment Act permits a federal court to "declare the rights and other legal relations of any interested party" as long as there exists an "actual controversy" that is "within [the] jurisdiction" of a federal court. 28 U. S. C. § 2201(a).
Proposition Two. Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (LMRA), 29 U. S. C. § 185(a), permits a federal court to adjudicate both an employer's claim that a contract's (i. e., a collective-bargaining agreement's) "no strike" clause forbids an ongoing strike and the related Union defense that it is free to strike because the contract itself is invalid. See ante, at 657-658; Brief for Petitioner 29 ("[B]efore enforcing an agreement, courts must adjudicate affirmative defenses such as fraud . . . in the collective bargaining process"); Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 13-14; Kaiser Steel Corp. v. Mullins, 455 U. S. 72, 85-86 (1982).
Proposition One means that the Declaratory Judgment Act gives a federal court the power to declare the "rights" and "legal relations" of both union and employer where the "controversy" described in Proposition Two is "actual," e. g., where the strike and consequent employer lawsuit is imminent. Moreover, this Court has pointed out that "[f]ederal courts have regularly taken original jurisdiction over declaratory judgment suits in which, if the declaratory judgment defendant [such as the employer here] brought a coercive
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