546US1
Unit: $U12
[08-22-08 15:26:08] PAGES PGT: OPIN
Cite as: 546 U. S. 132 (2005)
139
Opinion of the Court
position than was the case in either Piggie Park or Chris tiansburg Garment and Zipes; we see nothing to persuade us that fees under § 1447(c) should either usually be granted or usually be denied. The fact that an award of fees under § 1447(c) is left to the district court’s discretion, with no heavy congressional thumb on either side of the scales, does not mean that no legal standard governs that discretion. We have it on good authority that “a motion to [a court’s] discretion is a motion, not to its inclination, but to its judgment; and its judgment is to be guided by sound legal principles.” United States v. Burr, 25 F. Cas. 30, 35 (No. 14,692d) (CC Va. 1807) (Marshall, C. J.). Discretion is not whim, and limiting discretion ac cording to legal standards helps promote the basic principle of justice that like cases should be decided alike. See Friendly, Indiscretion About Discretion, 31 Emory L. J. 747, 758 (1982). For these reasons, we have often limited courts’ discretion to award fees despite the absence of express legis lative restrictions. That is, of course, what we did in Piggie Park, supra, at 402 (A prevailing plaintiff “should ordinarily recover an attorney’s fee unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust”), Christiansburg Garment, supra, at 422 (“[A] plaintiff should not be assessed his oppo nent’s attorney’s fees unless a court finds that his claim was frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless”), and Zipes, 491 U. S., at 761 (Attorney’s fees should be awarded against interve nors “only where the intervenors’ action was frivolous, un reasonable, or without foundation”). In Zipes, we reaffirmed the principle on which these deci sions are based: “Although the text of the provision does not specify any limits upon the district courts’ discretion to allow or disallow fees, in a system of laws discretion is rarely with out limits.” Id., at 758. Zipes also explains how to discern the limits on a district court’s discretion. When applying fee-shifting statutes, “we have found limits in ‘the large ob
