LEWIS, Circuit Judge.
Appellant is the Superintendent of Insurance of the State of Missouri and in such capacity was appointed by the state court of Missouri as receiver of Guaranty Insurance Exchange, an insolvent reciprocal insurance association organized and licensed under the laws of Missouri. The appellee Hunt is the Insurance Commissioner of the State of Oklahoma and in such capacity was appointed by the state court of Oklahoma as ancillary receiver of such insolvent insurer and was directed and ordered to take charge of and to administer the assets of the insurer within the state of Oklahoma. The other appellees are insurance agents of Guaranty Insurance Exchange within Oklahoma. By complaint filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma and naming the appellee as a defendant in his individual capacity, appellant sought declaratory relief pursuant to Title 28 U.S. C.A. § 2201, upon allegation that certain assets of the insolvent insurer existed within the State of Oklahoma consisting of agents’ balances and unearned commissions which, by contract and the statutory provisions of the State of Missouri, constituted trust funds for the equal and proportionate benefit of all creditors of the insolvent insurer wherever located; that the appellee wrongfully exceeds his authority as an officer of the State of Oklahoma and as an officer of the state court of Oklahoma by claiming the right to collect and administer such assets under Oklahoma statutory law which “purportedly vests in the Ancillary Receiver the immediate right to recover agents’ balances due an out-state insurer by its agents in the State of Oklahoma which statute was intended to apply only to agents’ balances in the State of Oklahoma which are recoverable by the Ancillary Receiver without violating contract obligations protected by Article 1 Section (10) of the Federal Constitution and without violating other relevant provisions of the United States Constitution,” and appellant sought to have the court determine and declare that all such assets should be exclusively administered by appellant and should be surrendered to him by appellees. The trial court dismissed the action, finding that it had jurisdiction of the action and the parties but that to exercise such jurisdiction “could, though not of necessity, create an unseemly conflict between the federal and state tribunals. The rights which plaintiff seeks to have declared in assets of the corporation can be fully treated within the state court, and of course, plaintiff’s constitutional rights will be as fully protected in that tribunal as in'this (federal) court.” We believe the order of the district court to he fully sustainable.
The general purpose of the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 2201, 2202, is to provide an immediate forum for the adjudication of rights and obligations in actual controversy where such controversy may be settled in its entirety and with expediency and economy. The grant of jurisdiction contained in the Act is not one of compulsion and the court has the discretion whether to entertain an action for declaratory relief. Brillhart v. Excess Ins. Co. of America, 316 U.S. 491, 62 S.Ct. 1173, 86 L.Ed. 1620; Public Affairs Associates, Inc. v. Rickover, 369 U.S. 111, 82 S.Ct. 580, 7 L.Ed.2d 604; Franklin Life Ins. Co. v. Johnson, 10 Cir., 157 F.2d 653. The questions of when to exercise jurisdiction, when to hold jurisdiction in abeyance, and when to reject jurisdiction are to be determined initially by the trial court, Guardian Life Ins. Co. of America v. Kortz, 10 Cir., 151 F.2d 582, and the judgment of the trial court will be reviewed by this court only to consider whether a clear abuse of discretion appears.
In the case at bar the liquidation of the Guaranty Insurance Co. is proceeding under the guidance of the state courts in several different jurisdictions and the discretionary action of the federal district court must accordingly be weighed not only by the general purposes of the Declaratory Judgment Act but as against the principles of the doctrine of abstention. Although the existence of another remedy through a pending action is not a bar to federal jurisdiction, Guardian Life Ins. Co. of America v. Kortz, 10 Cir., 151 F.2d 582, Rule 57, F.R.Civ.P., the federal court should not hasten to seize upon the determination of a federal constitutional question whose potential lies only in the yet undetermined action of a state court; nor should a federal court needlessly seek conflict with the administration by a state of its own affairs by anticipating an unconstitutional resolution of unsettled questions of state law. These principles seem peculiarly applicable here. The essence of appellant’s complaint is
that appellee, an official of the State of Oklahoma, will seize and administer certain assets of the insolvent insurer, under the authority of the state court of Oklahoma and at its direction, in such a manner as to render a cited Oklahoma statute federally unconstitutional in application. To determine this claim the federal court would have to lend itself as a forum to determine issues open for decision in the courts of Oklahoma and in an action now pending in those courts. The Declaratory Judgment Act is not intended to give alternative forums so as to draw federal and state courts into potential conflict, National Cancer Hospital of America v. Webster, 2 Cir., 251 F.2d 466, nor to encourage “procedural fencing,” Franklin Life Ins. Co. v. Johnson, 10 Cir., 157 F.2d 653, nor to force determination of the constitutionality of local statutes enforced by local processes, Coffman v. City of Wichita, D.C. Kan., 165 F.Supp. 765 aff’d 10 Cir., 261 F.2d 112. We are satisfied that the trial court did not abuse its discretion.
The judgment is affirmed.
What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Intervenors who participated as parties at the courts of appeals should be counted as either appellants or respondents when it can be determined whose position they supported. For example, if there were two plaintiffs who lost in district court, appealed, and were joined by four intervenors who also asked the court of appeals to reverse the district court, the number of appellants should be coded as six.
In some cases there is some confusion over who should be listed as the appellant and who as the respondent. This confusion is primarily the result of the presence of multiple docket numbers consolidated into a single appeal that is disposed of by a single opinion. Most frequently, this occurs when there are cross appeals and/or when one litigant sued (or was sued by) multiple litigants that were originally filed in district court as separate actions. The coding rule followed in such cases should be to go strictly by the designation provided in the title of the case. The first person listed in the title as the appellant should be coded as the appellant even if they subsequently appeared in a second docket number as the respondent and regardless of who was characterized as the appellant in the opinion.
To clarify the coding conventions, consider the following hypothetical case in which the US Justice Department sues a labor union to strike down a racially discriminatory seniority system and the corporation (siding with the position of its union) simultaneously sues the government to get an injunction to block enforcement of the relevant civil rights law. From a district court decision that consolidated the two suits and declared the seniority system illegal but refused to impose financial penalties on the union, the corporation appeals and the government and union file cross appeals from the decision in the suit brought by the government. Assume the case was listed in the Federal Reporter as follows:
United States of America,
Plaintiff, Appellant
v
International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
Defendant, Appellee.
International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
Defendants, Cross-appellants
v
United States of America.
Widgets, Inc. & Susan Kuersten Sheehan, President & Chairman
of the Board
Plaintiff, Appellants,
v
United States of America,
Defendant, Appellee.
This case should be coded as follows:Appellant = United States, Respondents = International Brotherhood of Widget Workers Widgets, Inc., Total number of appellants = 1, Number of appellants that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officials" = 1, Total number of respondents = 3, Number of respondents that fall into the category "private business and its executives" = 2, Number of respondents that fall into the category "groups and associations" = 1.
Your task is to identify the state of the first listed state or local government agency that is an appellant.