§ 25-903.Submitting controversy without action; procedure.

Not every legal dispute needs a full lawsuit to resolve it. Section 25-903 lets parties to a question that might be the subject of a civil action skip filing an action altogether. Instead, they agree on a case containing the facts on which the controversy depends and present that submission to any court that would have had jurisdiction if an action had been brought.

The section guards against parties manufacturing a fake dispute just to secure a favorable ruling: it must appear by affidavit that the controversy is real and that the proceedings are in good faith, aimed at determining the parties’ actual rights. That affidavit requirement is the gatekeeper that separates a genuine submitted controversy from a collusive one.

Once the submission is properly before it, the court hears and determines the case and renders judgment as if an action were pending. The result carries the same weight as a judgment in ordinary litigation.

This mechanism is a different animal from a declaratory judgment action, which the statute cross-references at sections 25-21,149 to 25-21,164. Both let parties resolve legal questions without the full machinery of ordinary litigation, but a submitted controversy under section 25-903 requires both sides to agree jointly on the facts and submit the dispute together, rather than one party alone seeking a declaration from the court.