Declaratory Judgments in Indiana

Abstract

On March 5, 1927, Indiana adopted the Uniform Act on Declaratory Judgments. Since then this reform in procedure has had in Indiana a somewhat checkered career. Beginning slowly to apply the statute, the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality by inference in 1930 in a case brought by certain taxpayers against the State Board of Tax Commissioners and the City of South Bend, alleging that a statute conferring revisory taxing powers on the State Board was unconstitutional. Constitutionality was squarely upheld upon allegations of non-justiciability in 1935, when the court upheld the propriety of an action for the construction of a contract for the sale of stock and the application to the purchase price of certain funds. A few judges had stumbled over this hurdle, believing the declaration of rights to be an advisory opinion, a hypothetical case, or for other reasons not to involve a justiciable controversy.