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

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restrain prosecutions pending the determination of the validity thereof where an adequate remedy at law exists.

1. APPEAL & ERROR—RIGHT RESULT BUT WRONG REASON—SUPREME COURT WILL AFFIRM.—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. ACTION—DECLARATORY RELIEF—REQUIREMENTS.—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. ACTION—DECLARATORY JUDGMENT—LITIGATION MUST BE PENDING OR THREATENED.—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. ACTION—DECLARATORY JUDGMENT—WHEN STATUTE IS APPLICABLE.—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. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—CHALLENGE TO STATUTE—SUPREME COURT HAS NOT ALWAYS REQUIRED PROSECUTION AS PREREQUISITE FOR.—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.
6. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—CHALLENGE TO STATUTE—APPELLEES WERE NOT WITHOUT REASON TO FEAR PROSECUTION FOR VIO-