Can a defendant in a civil case be sued for damages or declaratory relief?

12 Why must the defendant in the civil case be sued for damages? Why discriminate in favor of patients whose criminal conduct has caused someone to be sued to abate a nuisance or for declaratory relief? The strange result of this limitation is that the privilege is not available in an action such as the one at bar, but could be claimed in a life insurance company's action against the patient to have it established that he cannot claim the benefit of a policy because he murdered the deceased! (Meyer v. Johnson, 115 Cal.App. 646, 2 P.2d 456.)