In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 99-3539

Craig Garbie, et al.,

Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.

DaimlerChrysler Corp.,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 98 C 2280--Robert W. Gettleman, Judge.

Argued April 19, 2000--Decided May 1, 2000

 Before Posner, Chief Judge, and Coffey and

Easterbrook, Circuit Judges.

 Easterbrook, Circuit Judge. Six plaintiffs filed

suit in Illinois, seeking to represent a class of

auto buyers and lessees whose vehicles had not

been painted properly. Two of the named

plaintiffs are residents of Illinois, four are

residents of Michigan. They sought damages under

both Illinois and Michigan law. Chrysler

Corporation, the defendant, removed the action to

federal court, asserting that it could have been

filed in federal court originally under the

diversity jurisdiction. 28 U.S.C. sec.1441(a).

Chrysler stated that it was incorporated in

Delaware and had its principal place of business

in Michigan. (Chrysler has since merged with

Daimler-Benz, but the citizenship of

DaimlerChrysler, the resulting entity, does not

matter to cases pending when the merger occurred.

For simplicity we refer throughout to

"Chrysler.") The presence of four plaintiffs from

Michigan, who the notice of removal identified as

"citizens" rather than just "residents" of that

state, was one obvious obstacle to federal

jurisdiction. The small stakes of each claim were

another. It is hard to see how any plaintiff’s

damages could be more than a fraction of the

vehicle’s price, see Gardynski-Leschuck v. Ford

Motor Co., 142 F.3d 955 (7th Cir. 1998), and

Chrysler did not allege that any of the cars cost

more than $75,000, the minimum amount in
controversy. 28 U.S.C. sec.1332(a). Unless at

least one of the representative plaintiffs could

recover more than $75,000 individually, the case

was not removable. See In re Brand Name

Prescription Drugs Antitrust Litigation, 123 F.3d

599, 607 (7th Cir. 1997). Cf. Stromberg Metal

Works, Inc. v. Press Mechanical, Inc., 77 F.3d

928 (7th Cir. 1996).

 The district court remanded the proceedings,

ruling that Chrysler had not established either

complete diversity of citizenship or the

jurisdictional stakes. 8 F. Supp. 2d 814 (N.D.

Ill. 1998). Chrysler asked the district court to

treat the Michigan plaintiffs as equivalent to

fraudulently joined defendants and to disregard

them for purposes of determining diversity. The

district court understood this as a request to

depart from Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 7 U.S. (3

Cranch) 267 (1806), and to replace complete

diversity with minimal diversity; the judge

declined, observing that each plaintiff had a

real, personal claim. Moreover, the judge

concluded, even with punitive damages added to

the loss caused by lousy paint, no plaintiff

could hope to recover more than $30,000 without

creating a ratio of punitive to actual damages so

high that it would become untenable. Indeed, for

any class member’s share of the damages to exceed

$75,000, compensatory damages would have to be

$30,000 apiece and if (as the judge thought) the

class has about 1,000 members, the aggregate

punitive award would have to exceed $45 million,

a sum the district judge thought impossibly high

for a dispute about defective paint. Cf. BMW of

North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559 (1996).

Although review of remands based on lack of

federal jurisdiction is prohibited by 28 U.S.C.

sec.1447(d), see Gravitt v. Southwestern Bell

Telephone Co., 430 U.S. 723 (1977); In re Amoco

Petroleum Additives Co., 964 F.2d 706, 708 (7th

Cir. 1992), Chrysler not only appealed but also

sought a writ of mandamus. We dismissed the

appeal and denied the petition; the case returned

to state court.

 So what is the dispute doing here again? "An

order remanding the case may require payment of

just costs and any actual expenses, including

attorney fees, incurred as a result of the

removal." 28 U.S.C. sec.1447(c). The district

court awarded plaintiffs $7,500 as expenses

occasioned by the wrongful removal. That is an

independently appealable order, unaffected by

sec.1447(d). See LaMotte v. Roundy’s, Inc., 27

F.3d 314, 315 (7th Cir. 1994). Chrysler’s theme

is that because it removed the suit "in good

faith" it should not have been ordered to pay

plaintiffs’ legal expenses, even if removal was

improper. Chrysler also contends that a local
rule of the district court interfered with its

opportunity to demonstrate federal jurisdiction

and it insists that the award is too high because

the district court did not require plaintiffs’

counsel to document his hours and rates. But the

foundation of Chrysler’s argument--that

sec.1447(c) authorizes sanctions against

litigants that remove in "bad faith"--is unsound.

We held in Tenner v. Zurek, 168 F.3d 328, 329-30

(7th Cir. 1999), that sec.1447(c) is not a

sanctions rule; it is a fee-shifting statute,

entitling the district court to make whole the

victorious party. An opponent’s bad faith may

strengthen the position of a party that obtained

a remand, but it is not essential to an award,

any more than under the multitude of other feeshifting statutes.

 Chrysler contends that we should exercise de

novo review; this argument is incompatible with

many decisions requiring deferential review of

awards under both fee-shifting and sanctions

statutes. See, e.g., Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx

Corp., 496 U.S. 384 (1990); Pierce v. Underwood,

487 U.S. 552 (1988); Mars Steel Corp. v.

Continental Bank N.A., 880 F.2d 928 (7th Cir.

1989) (en banc); Tenner, 168 F.3d at 329. Nothing

in the district court’s approach smacks of an

abuse of discretion; to the contrary, the judge

would have abused his discretion had he denied

the plaintiffs’ request for fees, because

Chrysler has behaved absurdly--not only

throughout this case, but also in other similar

suits, all of which Chrysler removed and all of

which have been remanded by federal judges across

the nation.

 Removal was unjustified under settled law. None

of the plaintiffs is apt to recover anything

close to $75,000, and Chrysler’s contention that

punitive damages should be aggregated for

purposes of determining the amount in controversy

clashes with established rules. Four of the named

plaintiffs hale from Michigan, so the litigants

are not completely diverse. Even if the

Michiganders were added to prevent removal, that

is their privilege; plaintiffs as masters of the

complaint may include (or omit) claims or parties

in order to determine the forum. Caterpillar Inc.

v. Williams, 482 U.S. 386, 392 (1987). Neither

sec.1332 nor any case of which we are aware

provides that defendants may discard plaintiffs

in order to make controversies removable. It is

enough that the claims be real, that the parties

not be nominal. See Howell v. Tribune

Entertainment Co., 106 F.3d 215, 218-19 (7th Cir.

1997); Poulos v. Naas Foods, Inc., 959 F.2d 69

(7th Cir. 1992); Matchett v. Wold, 818 F.2d 574

(7th Cir. 1987). The Michigan plaintiffs’ claims

are every bit as real as the Illinois plaintiffs’
claims--and no rule of law bars a class action

that includes representatives from other states.

Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts, 472 U.S. 797

(1985).

 After the district court remanded the case,

Chrysler filed a frivolous appeal and a frivolous

petition for mandamus. On this appeal, which is

at least within our jurisdiction, Chrysler argued

for de novo review in the teeth of contrary

decisions by the Supreme Court and this court

(including one, Tenner, that deals directly with

sec.1447(c)), contended that a district court

local rule concerning the conduct of discovery

violates the tenth amendment (we’re not fooling,

Chrysler actually advances this argument), and

proceeded as if "bad faith" were vital. As we

have said, it is not essential--but almost every

step of Chrysler’s conduct throughout this

litigation has been in bad faith (objectively

understood to mean frivolous tactics and

arguments, see Lee v. Clinton, No. 99-3250 (7th

Cir. Apr. 10, 2000); In re TCI Ltd., 769 F.2d 441

(7th Cir. 1985)). None of Chrysler’s other

substantive arguments requires separate comment.

 According to Chrysler, an award of $7,500 is

too high, because not adequately documented. We

would have been inclined to hold the award too

low, had the plaintiffs filed a cross appeal, but

they did not. True enough, the plaintiffs did not

file the elaborate documentation required for

substantial awards calculated under the lodestar

method, but $7,500 is not a particularly large

sum in commercial litigation (we’re willing to

bet that it is much less than what Chrysler’s

lawyers charged their client for services in

connection with removal, which included extensive

briefing, interrogatories, and two requests for

appellate review). District judges have

discretion to tailor the documentation

requirement so that it is appropriate in light of

the stakes; otherwise the aggrieved parties might

spend more detailing their entitlements than they

receive under sec.1447(c). See Henry v.

Webermeier, 738 F.2d 188, 193 (7th Cir. 1984).

Whether or not a local rule of the Northern

District of Illinois calls for more documentation

as a norm, each judge may decide when strict

application of the local rules makes sense.

Chrysler points to cases in which the Northern

District of Illinois has demanded additional

documentation, and others in which we have

sustained district courts’ right to enforce their

local rules to the letter, but none in which we

have held that every district court must do this

on every occasion.

 Because sec.1447(c) is a fee-shifting statute,

the plaintiffs as prevailing parties are
presumptively entitled to recover the attorneys’

fees incurred in defending their award.

Commissioner of INS v. Jean, 496 U.S. 154 (1990).

It works much like the provisions in the Rules of

Civil Procedure requiring the party that

unsuccessfully opposes a discovery request to pay

the other side’s legal expenses. Rickels v. South

Bend, 33 F.3d 785 (7th Cir. 1994), holds that

Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(4) is a fee-shifting rule,

and that the victor therefore is entitled to

recover fees on appeal. "The rationale of feeshifting rules is that the victor should be made

whole--should be as well off as if the opponent

had respected his legal rights in the first

place. This cannot be accomplished if the victor

must pay for the appeal out of his own pocket."

33 F.3d at 787 (emphasis in original). Section

1447(c) entitles plaintiffs to "just costs and

any actual expenses, including attorney fees,

incurred as a result of the removal"--and

plaintiffs’ expenses on appeal, no less than

their expenses in the district court, were

"incurred as a result of the removal."

Unjustified removal complicates and extends

litigation; the American Rule requires parties to

bear their expenses in one set of courts, but

when their adversary wrongfully drags them into

a second judicial system the loser must expect to

cover the incremental costs. Wisconsin v. Glick,

782 F.2d 670 (7th Cir. 1986). Cf. Continental Can

Co. v. Chicago Truck Drivers Pension Fund, 921

F.2d 126 (7th Cir. 1990). This is the second

appeal (plus a petition for mandamus) in

Chrysler’s never-say-die campaign, which appears

designed to increase its adversary’s expenses

(and thus discourage litigation) without regard

to the merits of plaintiffs’ position. An award

of fees for work on appeal will reduce the

effectiveness of that tactic. Any more in the

same vein from Chrysler will lead to punitive

sanctions on top of the fees.

 The judgment is affirmed, with appellees to

recover costs and other expenses (including

attorneys’ fees). Plaintiffs have 14 days to file

a statement of the reasonable costs, expenses,

and fees incurred on this appeal.