itional remedies, and that article III
defined and limited judicial power not the particular method by which
that power may be invoked or exercised. The Federal Declaratory
Judgments Act of 1934 was in due course upheld in Aetna Life Insurance
Co. _v._ Haworth,[240] as a valid exercise of Congressional power over
the practice and procedure of federal courts which includes the power to
create and improve as well as to abolish or restrict.

The Declaratory Judgment Act of 1934

The act of 1934 was carefully drawn, and provided that: "In cases of
actual controversy the courts of the United States shall have power
* * * to declare rights and other legal relations of any interested
party petitioning for such declaration, whether or not further relief is
or could be prayed, and such declaration shall have the force and
effect of a final judgment or decree and be reviewable as such." The
other two sections provided for further relief whenever necessary and
proper and for jury trials of matters of fact.[241] In the first case
involving private parties exclusively to arise under the act, Aetna Life
Insurance Co. _v._ Haworth,[242] the Court held that a declaration
should have been issued by the district court, although it reiterated
with the usual emphasis the necessity of adverse parties, a justiciable
controversy and specific relief. In the Ashwander case it approved the
refusal of the lower Court to issue a declaration generally on the
constitutionality of the Tennessee Valley Authority, because the act of
1934 applied only to "cases of actual controversy." In the same case the
Court itself refused to pass upon the navigability of the New and
Kanawha rivers and the authority of the Federal Power Commission even at
the request of the United States, on the ground that the bill did no
more than state a difference of opinion between the United States and
West Virginia to which the judicial power did not extend.[243]
Similarly, in Electric Bond & Share Co. _v._ Securities and Exchange
Commission,[244] the Court refused to decide any constitutional issues
arising out of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 except the
registration provisions because the cross bill in which the company had
asked for a declaration that the whole act was unconstitutional was
regarded as presenting a variety of hypothetical questions that might
never become real.

The "Case" or "Controversy" Test in Declaratory Judgment Proceedings

Th