Litigators and con law/procedure know-alls: Forum

[Renzo]

Help me understand the difference between declaratory and injunctive relief. And, before a bunch of clowns spout off some wikipedia shit, spare me the basics. What I need to know is if a statute creates a private cause of action for damages, but not for injunctive relief, is a private suit seeking declaratory judgement possible?

[06072010]

Declarative relief is a judgement that the law does not apply to you or that you are not liable. Injunctive relief is enjoining the law from being enforced against you. You don't have standing to assert either until they are enforced or you have a reasonable belief that it will be enforced.

[06072010]

I think you are confused. Statute X provides liability upon condition Y. Person A says they are going to sue you under statute X. You can ask for declaratory relief so that you are not burdened under threat of a lawsuit.

Even if a statute does not provide for injunctive relief, you may still be able to get it in equity.

[Renzo]

I think you are confused. Statute X provides liability upon condition Y. Person A says they are going to sue you under statute X. You can ask for declaratory relief so that you are not burdened under threat of a lawsuit.

Even if a statute does not provide for injunctive relief, you may still be able to get it in equity.

No doubt I'm confused, no one's ever mentioned declaratory judgements to me before.

Specifically, I am looking at the Fair Labor Standards act, which says both the aggrieved employees AND the Sec. of Labor can sue for damages if min. wages or overtime aren't paid, but explicitly says that ONLY the Sec. of Labor can seek injunctive relief under the act.

If (for reasons too complex to digress into) a person didn't want or couldn't seek damages, could they still sue for declaratory judgement, or would that be considered injunctive (and thus reserved for the Sec. of Labor)

[06072010]

Your intuition is correct -- that's injunctive relief. It really blows that you have to take a separate remedies class in law school to get this stuff.

[Renzo]

Thanks, and yes, it does. But you've probably saved me 100's of hours of trying to figure it out myself via ALRs and the interwebs.