St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company v. Philip H. Runyon

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that a party used procedural fencing when it filed its federal action knowingly one day before the other party filed its state action and waited three years before seeking a declaratory action
• stating that whether a court should exercise power to enter a declaratory judgment is committed to the sound discretion of the district court
• holding that the district court did not abuse discretion in finding improper purpose where, after three years of negotiations, an insurance company filed declaratory action the day before it knew the insured would file suit in state court on similar issues
• noting that “[a] district court may choose to avoid a declaratory judgment action because the plaintiff is using the action for procedural fencing.”
• affirming dismissal where the insurer filed a declaratory judgment action one day before the insured promised to file a state court action
• affirming district court’s refusal to exercise jurisdiction where state action would “necessarily determine rights and obligations under the [insurance] contract’

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).