Page:Jegley v. Picado, 349 Ark. 600 (2002).pdf/2

Rh restrain prosecutions pending the determination of the validity thereof where an adequate remedy at law exists.
 * 1) A.—The supreme court will affirm the trial court if it reached the right result, even though the court may have announced the wrong reason.
 * 2) A.—Declaratory relief will lie where (1) there is a justiciable controversy; (2) it exists between parties with adverse interests; (3) those seeking relief have a legal interest in the controversy; and (4) the issues involved are ripe for decision.
 * 3) A.—The courts do not construe acts similar to Act 274 of 1953, the Declaratory Judgment Act, to require actual litigation as a prerequisite to asking for a declaratory judgment, but they do state, as a general rule, that litigation must be pending or threatened; whether relief under the Act should be granted is a matter resting in sound judicial discretion; such relief ought not ordinarily be granted where another adequate remedy is at hand.
 * 4) A.—The declaratory-judgment statute is applicable only where there is a present actual controversy, and all interested persons are made parties, and only where justiciable issues are presented; it does not undertake to decide the legal effect of laws upon a state of facts which is future, contingent or uncertain; a declaratory judgment will not be granted unless the danger or dilemma of the plaintiff is present, not contingent on the happening of hypothetical future events; the prejudice to his position must be actual and genuine and not merely possible, speculative, contingent, or remote.
 * 5) C.—Although the supreme court clearly requires the existence of a justiciable controversy prior to granting a declaratory judgment, it has heard challenges to the constitutionality of statutes and regulations by persons who did not allege that they had been penalized under the statutes or regulations; the supreme court has not always required prosecution or a specific threat of prosecution as a prerequisite for challenging a statute.
 * C