Opinion ID: 1352101
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Costs and attorney-fee awards upon remand

Text: A civil case that is filed in state court may be removed by the defendant to federal district court if the plaintiff could have chosen to file there originally. 28 U.S.C. § 1441. If the district court later determines that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction, however, the case must be remanded. 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c). The remand statute provides that [a]n order remanding the case may require payment of just costs and any actual expenses, including attorney fees, incurred as a result of the removal. Id. This language places an award of costs and attorney fees (hereinafter sometimes collectively referred to simply as fees or fee awards) squarely within the discretion of the district court, but subject to the guidance set forth by the Supreme Court in Martin v. Franklin Capital Corp., 546 U.S. 132, 136-37, 126 S.Ct. 704, 163 L.Ed.2d 547 (2005). Absent unusual circumstances, the Supreme Court instructs that fee awards are appropriate only where the removing party lacked an objectively reasonable basis for seeking removal. Id. at 141, 126 S.Ct. 704. This court has similarly instructed that an award of costs, including attorney fees, is inappropriate where the defendant's attempt to remove the action was `fairly supportable,' or where there has not been at least some finding of fault with the defendant's decision to remove. Bartholomew, 409 F.3d at 687 (quoting Ahearn v. Charter Twp. of Bloomfield, No. 97-1187, 1998 WL 384558 at  (6th Cir. June 18, 1998) (unpublished) (emphasis in original)). Warthman asserts in her brief that [w]hen a district court denies attorney fees it abuses its discretion where the Defendant's argument for removal was devoid of even fair support. She takes this statement of the rule from Bartholomew, 409 F.3d at 687, an opinion that quoted from the unpublished Ahearn decision. 1998 WL 384558 at . This language suggests that the district court's discretion under § 1447(c) is basically a binary determination: if the defendant's argument for removal was objectively reasonable, the court may not award fees to the plaintiff; if it was not, the district court must award such fees. This court applied that rule in Ahearn. Following a finding that the removal to federal court in Ahearn lacked fair support, the court remanded the case with an instruction to make an evidentiary determination as to the fees actually incurred in conjunction with the removal petition. Id. at . Bartholomew quoted the rule as it was stated in Ahearn, but did not apply it in the same way because the defendant's removal in Bartholomew was fairly supportable. Bartholomew, 409 F.3d at 687-88. In Bartholomew, we accordingly affirmed the district court's denial of fees to the plaintiff. Id. at 688. Just eight months after Bartholomew, however, the Supreme Court decided Martin, which is now the leading case on discretionary fee awards pursuant to § 1447(c). The Supreme Court in Martin noted that Congress designed the costs-and-fees provision in § 1447(c) to permit removal in appropriate cases, while simultaneously reduc[ing] the attractiveness of removal as a method for delaying litigation and imposing costs on the plaintiff. Martin, 546 U.S. at 140, 126 S.Ct. 704. In cases where removal was not objectively reasonable, Martin instructs the district courts to consider this underlying purpose when they exercise their discretion. Id. at 141, 126 S.Ct. 704. In general, objectively unreasonable removals should result in fee awards to plaintiffs. Id. District courts should consider, however, whether unusual circumstances warrant a departure from the rule in a given case. Id. For example, a court might find that a plaintiff's delay in seeking remand or failure to disclose facts necessary to determine jurisdiction undermines the rationale that supports fee awards. Id. In sum, Martin makes clear that a district court's discretion to award or deny fees under § 1447(c) involves more than an on-off switch that is solely dependent on the objective reasonableness of the removal decision. See id. The rule that this court articulated in Ahearn and Bartholomew therefore no longer applies.