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MARTIN v. FRANKLIN CAPITAL CORP. Opinion of the Court
We granted certiorari, 544 U. S. 998 (2005), to resolve a conflict among the Circuits concerning when attorney’s fees should be awarded under § 1447(c). Compare, e. g., Horn buckle v. State Farm Lloyds, 385 F. 3d 538, 541 (CA5 2004) (“Fees should only be awarded if the removing defendant lacked objectively reasonable grounds to believe the removal was legally proper” (internal quotation marks omitted)), with Sirotzky v. New York Stock Exchange, 347 F. 3d 985, 987 (CA7 2003) (“[P]rovided removal was improper, the plaintiff is presumptively entitled to an award of fees”), and Hofler v. Aetna U. S. Healthcare of Cal., Inc., 296 F. 3d 764, 770 (CA9 2002) (affirming fee award even when “the defend ant’s position may be fairly supportable” (internal quotation marks omitted)). We hold that, absent unusual circum stances, attorney’s fees should not be awarded when the removing party has an objectively reasonable basis for removal. We therefore affirm the judgment of the Tenth Circuit. II The Martins argue that attorney’s fees should be awarded automatically on remand, or that there should at least be a strong presumption in favor of awarding fees. Section 1447(c), however, provides that a remand order “may” re quire payment of attorney’s fees—not “shall” or “should.” As Chief Justice Rehnquist explained for the Court in Fo gerty v. Fantasy, Inc., 510 U. S. 517, 533 (1994), “[t]he word ‘may’ clearly connotes discretion. The automatic awarding of attorney’s fees to the prevailing party would pretermit the exercise of that discretion.” Congress used the word “shall” often enough in § 1447(c)—as when it specified that removed cases apparently outside federal jurisdiction “shall be remanded”—to dissuade us from the conclusion that it meant “shall” when it used “may” in authorizing an award of fees. The Martins are on somewhat stronger ground in pressing for a presumption in favor of awarding fees. As they ex
