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MARTIN v. FRANKLIN CAPITAL CORP. Opinion of the Court
it is not a fee-shifting statute at all. According to Franklin, the provision simply grants courts jurisdiction to award costs and attorney’s fees when otherwise warranted, for ex ample when Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 supports awarding fees. Although Franklin is correct that the prede cessor to § 1447(c) was enacted, in part, because courts would otherwise lack jurisdiction to award costs on remand, see Mansfield, C. & L. M. R. Co. v. Swan, 111 U. S. 379, 386–387 (1884), there is no reason to assume Congress went no further than conferring jurisdiction when it acted. Con gress could have determined that the most efficient way to cure this jurisdictional defect was to create a substantive basis for ordering costs. The text supports this view. If the statute were strictly jurisdictional, there would be no need to limit awards to “just” costs; any award authorized by other provisions of law would presumably be “just.” We therefore give the statute its natural reading: Section 1447(c) authorizes courts to award costs and fees, but only when such an award is just. The question remains how to define that standard. The Solicitor General would define the standard narrowly, arguing that fees should be awarded only on a showing that the unsuccessful party’s position was “frivolous, unreason able, or without foundation”—the standard we have adopted for awarding fees against unsuccessful plaintiffs in civil rights cases, see Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U. S. 412, 421 (1978), and unsuccessful intervenors in such cases, see Zipes, supra, at 762. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 14–16. But just as there is no basis for sup posing Congress meant to tilt the exercise of discretion in favor of fee awards under § 1447(c), as there was in Piggie Park, so too there is no basis here for a strong bias against fee awards, as there was in Christiansburg Garment and Zipes. The statutory language and context strike us as more evenly balanced between a pro-award and anti-award
