546US1
Unit: $U12
[08-22-08 15:26:08] PAGES PGT: OPIN
Cite as: 546 U. S. 132 (2005)
137
Opinion of the Court
plain, we interpreted a statute authorizing a discretionary award of fees to prevailing plaintiffs in civil rights cases to nonetheless give rise to such a presumption. Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U. S. 400, 402 (1968) (per curiam). But this case is not at all like Piggie Park. In Piggie Park, we concluded that a prevailing plaintiff in a civil rights suit serves as a “ ‘private attorney general,’ ” helping to ensure compliance with civil rights laws and ben efiting the public by “vindicating a policy that Congress considered of the highest priority.” Ibid. We also later explained that the Piggie Park standard was appropriate in that case because the civil rights defendant, who is required to pay the attorney’s fees, has violated federal law. See Flight Attendants v. Zipes, 491 U. S. 754, 762 (1989) (“Our cases have emphasized the crucial connection between liabil ity for violation of federal law and liability for attorney’s fees under federal fee-shifting statutes”). In this case, plaintiffs do not serve as private attorneys general when they secure a remand to state court, nor is it reasonable to view the defendants as violators of federal law. To the contrary, the removal statute grants defendants a right to a federal forum. See 28 U. S. C. § 1441 (2000 ed. and Supp. II). A remand is necessary if a defendant improperly asserts this right, but incorrectly invoking a federal right is not comparable to violating substantive federal law. The reasons for adopting a strong presumption in favor of award ing fees that were present in Piggie Park are accordingly absent here. In the absence of such reasons, we are left with no sound basis for a similar presumption. Instead, had Congress intended to award fees as a matter of course to a party that successfully obtains a remand, we think that “[s]uch a bold departure from traditional practice would have surely drawn more explicit statutory language and legisla tive comment.” Fogerty, supra, at 534. For its part, Franklin begins by arguing that § 1447(c) pro vides little guidance on when fees should be shifted because
