BP p.l.c. v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore

P R E L I M I N A R Y P R I N T
Volume 593 U. S. Part 1
Pages 230–254
OFFICIAL REPORTS
OF
T H E S U P R E M E C O U R T
May 17, 2021
REBECCA A. WOMELDORF
reporter of decisions
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230 OCTOBER
TERM, 2020
Syllabus
BP P. L. C. et al. v. MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF
B
ALTIMORE
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the fourth circuit
No. 19–1189. Argued January 19, 2021—Decided May 17, 2021
Baltimore's Mayor and City Council (collectively City) sued various energy
companies in Maryland state court alleging that the companies con-
cealed the environmental impacts of the fossil fuels they promoted.
The defendant companies removed the case to federal court invoking a
number of grounds for federal jurisdiction, including the federal offcer
removal statute, 28 U. S. C. § 1442. The City argued that none of the
defendants' various grounds for removal justifed retaining federal juris-
diction, and the district court agreed, issuing an order remanding the
case back to state court. Although an order remanding a case to state
court is ordinarily unreviewable on appeal, Congress has determined
that appellate review is available for those orders “remanding a case to
the State court from which it was removed pursuant to section 1442 or
1443 of [Title 28].” § 1447(d). The Fourth Circuit read this provision
to authorize appellate review only for the part of a remand order decid-
ing the § 1442 or § 1443 removal ground. It therefore held that it lacked
jurisdiction to review the district court's rejection of the defendants'
other removal grounds.
Held: The Fourth Circuit erred in holding that it lacked jurisdiction to
consider all of the defendants' grounds for removal under § 1447(d).
Pp. 237–247.
(a) The ordinary meaning of § 1447(d)'s text permits appellate review
of the district court's entire remand order when a defendant relies on
§ 1442 or § 1443 as a ground for removal. The relevant portion of
§ 1447(d) provides that “an order remanding a case to the State court
from which it was removed pursuant to section 1442 or 1443 of this title
shall be reviewable by appeal.” The “order remanding a case” here
rejected all of the defendants' grounds for removal because (subject to
exceptions not applicable here) the district court was not at liberty to
remove the City's case from its docket until it determined that it lacked
any authority to entertain the suit. See, e. g., Carnegie-Mellon Univ.
v. Cohill, 484 U. S. 343, 356; see also Sprint Communications, Inc. v.
Jacobs, 571 U. S. 69, 72 (“[C]ourts are obliged to decide cases within
the scope of federal jurisdiction” assigned to them). And this case was
removed “pursuant to” § 1442 because the defendants relied on § 1442 as

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231
Syllabus
a ground for removal when satisfying the requirements of § 1446. It
makes
no difference that the defendants removed the case “pursuant to”
multiple federal statutes. The general removal statute contemplates
this possibility when it speaks of actions “removed solely under” the
diversity jurisdiction statute. § 1446(b)(2)(A) (emphasis added). And
§ 1447(d) contains no comparable language limiting appellate review to
cases removed solely under § 1442 or § 1443. The parties' dueling ob-
servations that Congress knows how to authorize appellate courts to
review every issue in a remand order, see, e. g., 18 U. S. C. § 3595(c)(1),
and that Congress also knows how to limit appellate review to particu-
lar “questions” rather than the whole “order,” see, e. g., 28 U. S. C.
§ 1295(a)(7), confrms the wisdom of focusing on the language Congress
did employ. The City's novel contention that the defendants never
really removed the case pursuant to § 1442 because no federal court here
held that the statute indeed authorized removal is mistaken and has
never been adopted by any court. Pp. 237–240.
(b) The Court's most analogous precedent, Yamaha Motor Corp.,
U. S. A. v. Calhoun, 516 U. S. 199, resolves any remaining doubt about
the best reading of § 1447(d). That case involved a dispute about the
meaning of § 1292(b)—a statute allowing a district court to certify “an
order” to the court of appeals if it “involves a controlling question of
law.” The Court held that the statute's grant of appellate review for
the “order,” meant the entire order was reviewable, not just the part of
the order containing the “controlling question of law.” Id., at 205. The
City suggests that the statute's use of the word “involves” shows that
the reviewable issues on appeal can be broader than the certifed ques-
tion. But nothing in Yamaha turned on the presence of the word “in-
volves.” Instead, as here, the Court focused on the statute's use of the
word “order.” The Court's decisions in Murdock v. Memphis, 20 Wall.
590, and United States v. Keitel, 211 U. S. 370, do not support the City
because both decisions were driven by concerns unique to their statu-
tory contexts; their reasoning is not easily generalizable to other juris-
dictional statutes; and neither comes nearly as close to the mark as
Yamaha. The Court's decisions in Carlsbad Technology, Inc. v. HIF
Bio, Inc., 556 U. S. 635, and Thermtron Products, Inc. v. Hermans-
dorfer, 423 U. S. 336—which permitted rather than foreclosed appellate
review of certain remand orders—similarly do not help the City's cause
because they say nothing about the part of § 1447(d) at issue today. Fi-
nally, the City argues that, when Congress amended § 1447(d) to add the
exception for federal offcer removal under § 1442 to the existing excep-
tion for civil rights cases under § 1443, Congress ratifed lower court
decisions that had read the prior version of § 1447(d) as permitting re-

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P. L. C. v. MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE
Syllabus
view only of the part of the remand order addressing § 1443's civil rights
remova
l ground. It is most unlikely that a smattering of lower court
opinions could ever represent a “broad and unquestioned” judicial con-
sensus that Congress must have been aware of and is presumed to have
endorsed. Jama v. Immigration and Customs En forcement, 543 U. S.
335, 349. And it certainly cannot do so where, as here, “the text and
structure of the statute are to the contrary.” Id., at 352. Pp. 240–245.
(c) The City's policy arguments do not alter the result because “even
the most formidable” policy arguments cannot “overcome” a clear statu-
tory directive, Kloeckner v. Solis, 568 U. S. 41, 56, n. 4. While the City
argues that allowing exceptions to the bar on appellate review of re-
mand orders will impair judicial effciency, that is the balance that Con-
gress struck for cases removed pursuant to § 1442 or § 1443. And allow-
ing full appellate review may actually help expedite some cases. The
City's contention that the Court's reading of § 1447(d) will invite defend-
ants to frivolously add § 1442 or § 1443 to their other grounds for re-
moval has already been addressed by other statutes and rules, such as
§ 1447(c), which permits a district court to order a party to pay the costs
and expenses of removal, and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b)–(c),
which authorizes courts to sanction frivolous arguments. The Court
declines to consider the merits of the defendants' removal grounds and
remands for the Fourth Circuit to consider those matters in the frst
instance. Pp. 245–247.
952 F. 3d 452, vacated and remanded.
Gorsuch, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts,
C. J., and Thomas, Breyer, Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, JJ.,
joined. Sotomayor, J., fled a dissenting opinion, post, p. 247. Alito, J.,
took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Kannon K. Shanmugam argued the cause for petitioners.
With him on the briefs were William T. Marks, Tanya S.
Manno, Theodore V. Wells, Jr., Daniel J. Toal, Peter D.
Keisler, C. Frederick Beckner III, Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr.,
Thomas G. Hungar, David C. Frederick, Brendan J. Crim-
mins, Daniel S. Severson, Philip H. Curtis, Matthew T.
Heartney, Kathleen Taylor Sooy, Tracy A. Roman, Honor
R. Costello, Nathan P. Eimer, Pamela R. Hanebutt, Ryan J.
Walsh, Michelle N. Lipkowitz, Thomas K. Prevas, Sean C.
Grimsley, Jameson R. Jones, Martha Thomsen, Megan
Berge, Shannon S. Broome, and Shawn Patrick Regan.

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233
Counsel
Brinton Lucas argued the cause for the United States as
ami
cus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were
Acting Solicitor General Wall, Assistant Attorney General
Clark, Deputy Solicitor General Gannon, and Jonathan D.
Brightbill and Eric Grant, Deputy Assistant Attorneys Gen-
eral, Jennifer Scheller Neumann, and Avi M. Kupfer.
Victor M. Sher argued the cause for respondents. With
him on the brief were Matthew K. Edling, and Martin D.
Quiñones.*
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were fled for the State of Indi-
ana et al. by Curtis T. Hill, Jr., Attorney General of Indiana, Thomas M.
Fisher, Solicitor General, Kian J. Hudson, Deputy Solicitor General, and
Corrine L. Youngs and Julia C. Payne, Deputy Attorneys General, by
Clyde Sniffen, Jr., Acting Attorney General of Alaska, and by the Attor-
neys General for their respective States as follows: Steve Marshall of Ala-
bama, Christopher M. Carr of Georgia, Derek Schmidt of Kansas, Lynn
Fitch of Mississippi, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, Douglas J. Peterson of Ne-
braska, Wayne Steneh jem of North Dakota, Alan Wilson of South Caro-
lina, Jason R. Ravnsborg of South Dakota, Ken Paxton of Texas, and Sean
D. Reyes of Utah; for the American Petroleum Institute by William M.
Jay, Andrew Kim, and Paul G. Afonso; for the Atlantic Legal Foundation
by Lawrence S. Ebner; for DRI–The Voice of the Defense Bar by Matthew
T. Nelson; for Energy Policy Advocates by Matthew D. Hardin; for the
National Association of Manufacturers et al. by Philip S. Goldberg, Linda
E. Kelly, and Patrick Hedren; for the Washington Legal Foundation by
John M. Masslon II and Cory L. Andrews; and for Gen. Richard B. Myers
(Ret.) et al. by Tristan L. Duncan. Zachary D. Tripp fled a brief for the
Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America as amicus curiae
urging vacatur.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affrmance were fled for the State of New
York et al. by Letitia James, Attorney General of New York, Barbara D.
Underwood, Solicitor General, Steven C. Wu, Deputy Solicitor General,
and Matthew W. Grieco, Assistant Solicitor General, by Peter F. Neronha,
Attorney General of Rhode Island, Neil F. X. Kelly, Assistant Attorney
General, and Tricia O'Hare Jedele and Alison B. Hoffman, Special Assist-
ant Attorneys General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective
jurisdictions as follows: Xavier Becerra of California, William Tong of
Connecticut, Kathleen Jennings of Delaware, Karl A. Racine of the Dis-
trict of Columbia, Clare E. Connors of Hawaii, Kwame Raoul of Illinois,
Aaron M. Frey of Maine, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Dana Nessel

234 BP
P. L. C. v. MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE
Opinion of the Court
Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the Court.
Th
is case began when Baltimore's mayor and city council
sued various energy companies for promoting fossil fuels
while allegedly concealing their environmental impacts.
But the merits of that claim have nothing to do with this
appeal. The only question before us is one of civil proce-
dure: Does 28 U. S. C. § 1447(d) permit a court of appeals to
review any issue in a district court order remanding a case
to state court where the defendant premised removal in part
on the federal offcer removal statute, § 1442, or the civil
rights removal statute, § 1443?
I
Three years ago, Baltimore's mayor and city council (we
refer to them collectively as the City) fled suit in Maryland
state court. The City's complaint included a number of
state-law causes of action, but most centered on the defend-
ants' alleged failure to warn about the dangers of their prod-
ucts—and the injuries the City says it suffered as a result.
Soon after the City fled suit, the defendants removed the
case to federal court. In support of their action, the defend-
ants invoked a variety of federal statutes. Most relevant
for our purposes, they pointed to a provision that promises
a federal forum for any action against an “offcer (or any
person acting under that offcer) of the United States or of
of Michigan, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Aaron Ford of Nevada, Gurbir
S. Grewal of New Jersey, Hector Balderas of New Mexico, Joshua H. Stein
of North Carolina, Ellen F. Rosenblum of Oregon, Thomas J. Donovan,
Jr., of Vermont, Mark R. Herring of Virginia, and Robert W. Ferguson of
Washington; for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation et al. by Ian Fein, Pete
Huffman, and Jon A. Mueller; for State and Local Government Groups
by Robert S. Peck and Lisa Soronen; for Erwin Chemerinsky et al. by
William A. Rossbach; and for Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse et al. by Gerson
H. Smoger.
Marco B. Simons, Richard L. Herz, Michelle C. Harrison, Kevin S.
Hannon, and David Bookbinder fled a brief for Boulder County, Colorado
et al. as amici curiae.
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Opinion of the Court
any agency thereof, in an offcial or individual capacity, for
or
relating to any act under color of such offce.” 28
U. S. C. § 1442(a)(1).
This statute authorized the removal of the City's suit, the
defendants said, because some of their challenged explora-
tion, drilling, and production operations took place at the fed-
eral government's behest. The companies also identifed a
number of other statutes that they believed independently
supported removal: the federal-question statute, 28 U. S. C.
§ 1331; the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 92 Stat. 657,
43 U. S. C. § 1349(b); the admiralty jurisdiction statute, 28
U. S. C. § 1333; and the bankruptcy removal statute, 28
U. S. C. § 1452.
Once the case arrived in federal court, the City fled a mo-
tion seeking to have it remanded back to state court. The
City argued that none of the companies' grounds for removal
justifed retaining federal jurisdiction. In an extensive
order, the district court reviewed each of the defendants'
cited bases for removal before ultimately agreeing with the
City and remanding the case to state court.
Normally that would have ended the matter. Since at
least 1949, federal appellate courts have generally lacked the
power to review a district court order remanding a case to
state court. See Act of May 24, 1949, § 84, 63 Stat. 102.
But like most rules, this one has accrued exceptions with
time. In the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress created an
exception allowing appellate review for cases “ `removed pur-
suant to' ” 28 U. S. C. § 1443, a provision that guarantees a
federal forum for certain federal civil rights claims. See
§ 901, 78 Stat. 266. So before a civil rights case is returned
to state court, a federal court of appeals usually can inter-
vene to test the soundness of the district court's remand
order.
In 2011, Congress added a similar exception for suits
against federal offcers or agencies removed pursuant to 28
U. S. C. § 1442. See Removal Clarifcation Act, § 2, 125 Stat.

236 BP
P. L. C. v. MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE
Opinion of the Court
545–546. Here, too, Congress has deemed it appropriate to
a
llow appellate review before a district court may remand a
case to state court. All told, then, the law as it stands today
provides that “[a]n order remanding a case to the State court
from which it was removed is not reviewable on appeal or
otherwise, except that an order remanding a case to the
State court from which it was removed pursuant to section
1442 or 1443 of this title shall be reviewable by appeal or
otherwise.” 28 U. S. C. § 1447(d).
After the district court ordered the City's case remanded
to state court, the defendants sought to appeal—and this
much everyone seemed to agree they were free to do. After
all, the defendants had relied on the federal offcer removal
statute found in § 1442 when they removed the case to fed-
eral court—and the current version of § 1447(d) permits an
appeal in just these circumstances. The real trouble began
only when it came to the scope of the defendants' appeal.
The Fourth Circuit read § 1447(d) as authorizing it to review
only the part of the district court's remand order discussing
§ 1442. As a result, the court of appeals refused to consider
whether the district court may have erred when it rejected
the defendants' other grounds for removal. Finding (only)
the district court's § 1442 analysis sound, the Fourth Circuit
proceeded to affrm. 952 F. 3d 452 (2020).
This ruling highlighted a circuit split. The Seventh Cir-
cuit, for example, has reasoned that § 1447(d) extends appel-
late review to the whole of an “ `order remanding a case to
the State court from which it was removed pursuant to sec-
tion 1442 or 1443.' ” See Lu Junhong v. Boeing Co., 792
F. 3d 805, 811 (2015). On that reading of the statute, appel-
late review is not confned to a defendant's removal argu-
ments under the federal offcer and civil rights removal stat-
utes. Instead, a court of appeals may review the merits of
all theories for removal that a district court has rejected.
Because the courts of appeals disagree over the scope of
their appellate authority under § 1447(d), we agreed to take
this case to resolve the question. 591 U. S. ––– (2020).
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Opinion of the Court
II
A
W
hen called on to interpret a statute, this Court generally
seeks to discern and apply the ordinary meaning of its terms
at the time of their adoption. Niz-Chavez v. Garland, 593
U. S. 155, 160 (2021). Here, the relevant portion of § 1447(d)
provides that “an order remanding a case to the State court
from which it was removed pursuant to section 1442 or 1443
of this title shall be reviewable by appeal.”
To our minds, the frst telling clue lies in the statute's use
of the term “order.” Whether we look to the time of
§ 1447(d)'s adoption or amendment, a judicial “order” meant
then what it means today: a “written direction or command
delivered by . . . a court or judge.”
1
So an “order remanding
a case” was (and is) a formal command from a district court
returning the case to state court. In this case, the district
court's remand order rejected all of the defendants' grounds
for removal. For good reason too. Normally, federal juris-
diction is not optional; subject to exceptions not relevant
here, “courts are obliged to decide cases within the scope of
federal jurisdiction” assigned to them. Sprint Communica-
tions, Inc. v. Jacobs, 571 U. S. 69, 72 (2013). So the district
court wasn't at liberty to remove the City's case from its
docket until it determined that it lacked any authority to
entertain the suit. See, e. g., Carnegie-Mellon Univ. v. Co-
hill, 484 U. S. 343, 356 (1988). From this it would seem to
follow that, when a district court's removal order rejects all
of the defendants' grounds for removal, § 1447(d) authorizes
a court of appeals to review each and every one of them.
After all, the statute allows courts of appeals to examine the
whole of a district court's “order,” not just some of its parts
or pieces.
1
Black's Law Dictionary 1322 (11th ed. 2019); see also id., at 1206 (9th
ed. 2009); id., at 1247 (rev. 4th ed. 1968) (“Every direction of a court or
judge made or entered in writing, and not included in a judgment”); id.,
at 1247 (4th ed. 1951) (same); id., at 1298 (3d ed. 1933) (same).

238 BP
P. L. C. v. MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE
Opinion of the Court
Of course, § 1447(d) extends appellate review only to some
orders—those
remanding a “case . . . removed pursuant to
section 1442 or 1443.” But it's hard to see how that qualif-
cation changes the calculus. To remove a case, a defendant
must comply with 28 U. S. C. § 1446. Essentially, that stat-
ute requires the defendant to provide affected parties and
cour ts w ith a notice st ati ng its grounds for remova l.
§§ 1446(a), (d). The combination of these actions “effect[s]
the removal.” § 1446(d). To remove a case “pursuant to”
§ 1442 or § 1443, then, just means that a defendant's notice of
removal must assert the case is removable “in accordance
with or by reason of ” one of those provisions.
2
Here, every-
one admits the defendants' notice of removal did just that by
citing § 1442 as one of its grounds for removal. Once that
happened and the district court ordered the case remanded
to state court, the whole of its order became reviewable on
appeal.
Nor does it matter if (as here) a defendant removes a case
“pursuant to” multiple federal statutes. Often enough,
parties act pursuant to a variety of legal authorities. A
criminal defendant may suggest he is eligible for sentencing
relief pursuant to multiple provisions. E. g., Pepper v.
United States, 562 U. S. 476, 481, n. 1 (2011). A civil litigant
might fle a complaint pursuant to more than one statute.
E. g., Rimini Street, Inc. v. Oracle USA, Inc., 586 U. S.
–––, ––– (2019). Likewise, a party may assert multiple
grounds for removing a case to federal court—as the defend-
ants did here. Indeed, the general removal statute contem-
plates just this possibility when, in contrast, it speaks of
actions “removed solely under” the diversity jurisdiction
statute. § 1446(b)(2)(A) (emphasis added). Yet, the partic-
ular provision at issue before us does not contain any compa-
2
Black's Law Dictionary, at 1401 (rev. 4th ed. 1968); id., at 1401 (4th ed.
1951); see also SAS Institute, Inc. v. Iancu, 584 U. S. –––, ––– (2018) (“in
accordance with”); Black's Law Dictionary, at 1493 (11th ed. 2019) (“[i]n
compliance with; in accordance with; under”; “[a]s authorized by”).
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Opinion of the Court
rable language like that limiting appellate review solely to
issues
under § 1442 or § 1443. Instead and again, § 1447(d)
permits appellate review of the district court's remand
order—without any further qualifcation.
B
How does the City reply? It suggests that exceptions to
statutory rules should be construed narrowly—and that our
reading of § 1447(d)'s exception to its general rule against
appellate review is too permissive.
We disagree. As a preliminary matter, the factual prem-
ise underlying the City's argument is surely contestable.
One might just as easily conceive of § 1447(d)'s usual rule
barring appellate review as itself an exception to the even
more general rule that fnal district court orders are appeal-
able under 28 U. S. C. § 1291. More fundamentally, the
City's legal premise is also in error. This Court has “ `no
license to give statutory exemptions anything but a fair
reading.' ” Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader
Media, 588 U. S. –––, ––– (2019) (brackets omitted). Excep-
tions and exemptions are no less part of Congress's work
than its rules and standards—and all are worthy of a court's
respect. That a law might temper its pursuit of one goal
by accommodating others can come as no surprise. Often
legislation becomes possible only because of such compro-
mises. Often lawmakers tread in areas fraught with com-
peting social demands where everyone agrees trade-offs are
required. Whatever the reason for a legislative compro-
mise, we have no right to place our thumbs on one side of
the scale or the other. Henson v. Santander Consumer
USA Inc., 582 U. S. 79, 89 (2017).
Alternatively, the City suggests that, if Congress had
wanted appellate courts to review every issue in a remand
order, it would have said as much. Sometimes, the City ob-
serves, Congress does exactly that, expressly directing
courts to resolve “all” legal issues in certain cases. See
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P. L. C. v. MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE
Opinion of the Court
Brief for Respondent 21 (citing 18 U. S. C. § 3595(c)(1); 5
U
. S. C. § 1508; 38 U. S. C. § 7104(a); and 33 U. S. C. § 1320(f )).
But the defendants remind us that Congress also knows how
to limit appellate review to particular “questions” rather
than the whole of a district court's “order”; sometimes it does
just that too. See Brief for Petitioners 18 (citing 28 U. S. C.
§ 1295(a)(7); 38 U. S. C. § 7292(b)(1); 42 U. S. C. § 8514(a)(2); 52
U. S. C. § 30110; 28 U. S. C. § 1254(2); 50 U. S. C. § 1803( j)).
In the end, all of the parties' fencing about language Con-
gress didn't use persuades us of only one thing—that we are
best served by focusing on the language it did employ.
All of which leaves the City to offer a different argument
from a new direction. Now, the City contends, the defend-
ants never really removed this case pursuant to § 1442. On
this account, a case is not “removed pursuant to section 1442
or 1443” until a federal court (district or appellate) holds that
one of these statutes authorizes removal. Because that
never happened here, the City reasons, the defendants were
not entitled to any appellate review. But this argument
isn't only novel—the City didn't pursue it below and no court
of appeals has adopted it. It is also mistaken. As we've
seen, it is generally a defendant's actions under § 1446 that
“effect the removal.” Once a defendant complies with
§ 1446, a state court may not proceed “further unless and
until the case is remanded.” 28 U. S. C. § 1446(d). That's
why normally it's the plaintiff who must seek judicial inter-
vention if it wishes to have the matter remanded to state
court—just as the City did here.
III
A
To the extent any doubt remains about how best to read
§ 1447(d), we believe our most analogous precedent resolves
it. In Yamaha Motor Corp., U. S. A. v. Calhoun, 516 U. S.
199, 204 (1996), this Court faced a dispute about the meaning
of 28 U. S. C. § 1292(b). That statute allows a district court

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241
Opinion of the Court
to certify “an order” to the court of appeals if it “involves a
control
ling question of law as to which there is substantial
ground for difference of opinion,” and if “an immediate ap-
peal from the order may materially advance the ultimate ter-
mination of the litigation.” In Yamaha, the Court asked the
parties to address whether § 1292(b) authorizes appellate
courts to review any question contained in the district
court's order—or whether it allows those courts to address
only the “controlling question of law” the district court certi-
fed for further review.
The answer there is telling here. The Court held that,
“[a]s the text of § 1292(b) indicates, appellate jurisdiction ap-
plies to the order certifed to the court of appeals, and is
not tied to the particular question formulated by the district
court.” 516 U. S., at 205. Although appellate courts “may
not reach beyond the certifed order to address other orders
made in the case,” they “may address any issue fairly in-
cluded within the certifed order because it is the order that
is appealable, and not the controlling question identifed by
the district court.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omit-
ted). Exactly the same might be said of our case: “[B]ecause
it is the [district court's removal] order that is appealable,”
a court of appeals “may address any issue fairly included
within” it. Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted).
The City seeks to distinguish Yamaha but we don't see
how we fairly might. The City observes that § 1292(b)
allows an appeal from an order that “involves” a controlling
question of law. By using the word “involves,” the City sub-
mits, Congress sought to make plain that the reviewable is-
sues on appeal can be broader than the certifed controlling
question of law. And, the City stresses, the word “involves”
does not appear in § 1447(d). But that is beside the point.
Nothing in Yamaha turned on the presence of the word “in-
volves” in § 1292(b). Instead, the Court's reasoning cen-
tered on the statute's use of the word “order.” By allowing
appellate courts to review a district court's “order,” the
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Opinion of the Court
Court explained, Congress had allowed review of any issue
fair
ly encompassed within it. That reasoning applies with
no less force here.
B
If Yamaha does much to undermine its argument, the City
seeks to draw support from other of this Court's cases.
Principally, it points to Murdock v. Memphis, 20 Wall. 590
(1875), and United States v. Keitel, 211 U. S. 370 (1908). But
both decisions were driven by concerns unique to their statu-
tory contexts; their reasoning is not easily generalizable to
other jurisdictional statutes; and neither comes nearly as
close to the mark as Yahama.
St ar t w ith Murdock. That case involved 28 U. S. C.
§ 1257, a statute permitting this Court to review certain
state court “judgments or decrees.” Concerned with the
constitutional implications of allowing federal courts to re-
view questions of state law, the Court in Murdock construed
the statute as authorizing this Court to examine only issues
of federal law contained within state court judgments and
decrees. See 20 Wall., at 630–632. Along the way, the
Court took pains to reserve the question whether Congress
could ever authorize this Court to review matters of state
law already defnitively resolved by state courts. Id., at
633. By contrast, no comparable concern with the Constitu-
tion's federal structure exists here. At some level, of
course, removal practices implicate questions of comity be-
tween federal and state authorities. But today we are
asked to decide only whether a federal court of appeals may
review one or many federal law rulings issued by an inferior
federal court. That comparatively humble question lies no-
where near Murdock's bounds.
Keitel involved the now-repealed Criminal Appeals Act.
That law authorized the government to appeal adverse crim-
inal “decision[s] or judgment[s]” based on certain enumer-
ated grounds, such as the invalidity of a federal statute. See
ch. 2564, 34 Stat. 1246. For its part, the Court held that
this language allowed the government to appeal only the stat-
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utorily enumerated questions. 211 U. S., at 398–399. Like
Murdock
, the Court in Keitel rested heavily on the statute's
context in reaching its conclusion. A new entitlement
allowing the government to appeal an adverse criminal judg-
ment was, in the Court's view, “exceptional.” 211 U. S., at
399. Meanwhile, here again, nothing in our case implicates
that concern.
Closer to home, the City directs our attention to Carlsbad
Technology, Inc. v. HIF Bio, Inc., 556 U. S. 635, 638 (2009),
and Thermtron Products, Inc. v. Hermansdorfer, 423 U. S.
336, 345–346 (1976). Those cases addressed the frst clause
of § 1447(d), which generally bars appellate review of re-
mand orders. Carlsbad and Thermtron held this bar ap-
plies only to remand orders premised on a lack of subject
matter jurisdiction or a defect in removal procedure; other
remand orders remain appealable. See Carlsbad, 556 U. S.,
at 638. The Court said this conclusion was necessary to
make sense of § 1447(d)'s interaction with § 1447(c). See id.,
at 638.
None of this, however, helps the City's cause. Some have
questioned Carlsbad and Thermtron. See, e. g., 556 U. S.,
at 642 (Stevens, J., concurring); id., at 642–643 (Scalia, J.,
concurring); Kakarala v. Wells Fargo Bank, N. A., 578 U. S.
914 (2016) (Thomas, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari).
But even taken on their own terms, both decisions permitted
rather than foreclosed appellate review of certain remand
orders. And the fact that this Court deemed certain orders
appealable under the statute's frst clause simply does not
settle, one way or another, the scope of appellate review
under the statute's second clause.
Having exhausted our cases, the City seeks support in
lower court decisions. It draws our attention to 2011 when
Congress amended § 1447(d) to authorize appellate review of
remand orders in cases removed under the federal offcer
statute. By that time, the City says, a number of courts of
appeals had already interpreted the prior version of § 1447(d)
that allowed appeals from remand orders in cases removed
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under the Civil Rights Act. And many of those courts had
read
§ 1447(d) as permitting them to review only the part of
a remand order addressing the civil rights removal ground.
From this fact, the City reasons, it follows that Congress
implicitly ratifed and endorsed parallel limits on appellate
review when it adopted its 2011 amendments.
Again, we do not see it. It seems most unlikely to us that
a smattering of lower court opinions could ever represent
the sort of “judicial consensus so broad and unquestioned
that we must presume Congress knew of and endorsed it.”
Jama v. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 543 U. S.
335, 349 (2005). And it certainly cannot do so where, as
here, “the text and structure of the statute are to the con-
trary.” Id., at 352. This Court bears no “warrant to ignore
clear statutory language on the ground that other courts
have done so.” Milner v. Department of Navy, 562 U. S.
562, 576 (2011). Our duty is to follow the law as we fnd it,
not to follow rotely whatever lower courts once might have
said about it.
Separately, the City worries that our interpretation might
upset lower court decisions on a different question. The
City points out that, when a district court remands a case, it
may require the defendant to pay certain of the plaintiff's
fees and costs. See 28 U. S. C. § 1447(c). While § 1447(d)
generally precludes appellate review of remand orders, many
lower courts have suggested that these § 1447(c) fee and cost
awards are nonetheless reviewable on appeal. The City
contends that our reading of § 1447(d) could put an end to all
that. It could, the City reasons, because if an “order re-
manding a case” really means the whole order, then the stat-
ute may bar appellate review of fee and cost awards con-
tained within those orders. That much, however, does not
necessarily follow. Often enough fee and cost awards are
treated as collateral to the merits and independently appeal-
able. See, e. g., Budinich v. Becton Dickinson & Co., 486
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U. S. 196, 200 (1988). In any event, the question is not pre-
sented
in this case and we do not purport to resolve it.
IV
The City concludes by asking us to consider the policy con-
sequences that follow from giving the text its ordinary mean-
ing. Barring appellate review of remand orders, the City
says, serves the worthy goal of allowing the parties to get
on with litigating the merits of their cases in state court.
Meanwhile, the City submits, allowing exceptions to this
rule promises only to impair that effciency interest.
The diffculties with this argument are by now familiar.
As this Court has explained, “even the most formidable” pol-
icy arguments cannot “overcome” a clear statutory directive.
Kloeckner v. Solis, 568 U. S. 41, 56, n. 4 (2012). Besides,
everyone agrees that the statute tempers its obvious concern
with effciency when it comes to cases removed pursuant to
§ 1442 or § 1443. For that subset of cases, Congress has ex-
pressed a heightened concern for accuracy, authorized appel-
late review, and accepted the delay it can entail. The fact
that the law as written allows appellate courts to examine
all (and not just some) removal grounds in these cases per-
haps just demonstrates, as Judge Easterbrook has sug-
gested, a congressional judgment that the “marginal delay
from adding . . . extra issue[s] to a case where the time
for briefng, argument, and decision has already been ac-
cepted is likely to be small.” See Lu Junhong, 792 F. 3d,
at 813.
In fact, allowing a fuller form of appellate review may ac-
tually help expedite some appeals. Suppose a court of ap-
peals fnds the § 1442 or § 1443 issue a diffcult and close one,
but believes removal is clearly and easily warranted on
another basis. Allowing the court to address that easier
question and avoid harder ones may facilitate a prompter
resolution of the proceeding for all involved. At the least, a
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rational Congress could have thought that considerations
l
ike these warranted allowing a court of appeals the power
to review the whole of a district court's remand order rather
than just certain select aspects of it.
That leaves the City to argue about different conse-
quences. It warns that our interpretation will invite
gamesmanship: Defendants may frivolously add § 1442 or
§ 1443 to their other grounds for removal, all with an eye to
ensuring appellate review down the line if the case is re-
manded. But the answers here too are familiar. Once
more, this Court's task is to discern and apply the law's plain
meaning as faithfully as we can, not “to assess the conse-
quences of each approach and adopt the one that produces
the least mischief.” Lewis v. Chicago, 560 U. S. 205, 217
(2010).
Nor is it as if Congress has been blind to the City's con-
cerns. As the City itself acknowledges, thanks to § 1447(c)
a district court may order a defendant to pay the plaintiff's
costs and expenses (including attorney's fees) if it frivolously
removes a case from state court. Additionally, the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure allow courts to sanction frivolous
arguments made in virtually any context. Rules 11(b)–(c).
Congress, thus, has already addressed the City's concerns in
other statutes and rules—just not in § 1447(d). To the ex-
tent that experience may prove these other measures insuf-
fcient, Congress is of course free to revise its work anytime.
But that forum, not this one, is the proper place for such
lawmaking.
*
The Fourth Circuit erred in holding that it was powerless
to consider all of the defendants' grounds for removal under
§ 1447(d). In light of that error, the defendants ask us to
consider some of those additional grounds ourselves. That
task, however, does not implicate the circuit split that we
took this case to resolve and we believe the wiser course is
to leave these matters for the Fourth Circuit to resolve
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Sotomayor, J., dissenting
in the frst instance. See Brownback v. King, 592 U. S.
–––,
–––, n. 4 (2021). The judgment of the Fourth Circuit is
vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
Justice Alito took no part in the consideration or deci-
sion of this case.
Justice Sotomayor, dissenting.
Civil defendants in state court may remove a case to fed-
eral district court by asserting one or more bases for federal
jurisdiction. If the district court concludes that the case
was improperly removed, it issues an order remanding the
case back to state court. For more than a century, the rule
has been that such remand orders are generally not subject
to appellate review. See In re Pennsylvania Co., 137 U. S.
451, 453–454 (1890). This rule, codifed at 28 U. S. C.
§ 1447(d), “refects Congress's longstanding policy of not per-
mitting interruption of the litigation of the merits of a re-
moved case by prolonged litigation of questions of jurisdic-
tion of the district court to which the cause is removed.”
Powerex Corp. v. Reliant Energy Services, Inc., 551 U. S.
224, 238 (2007) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Originally, there were no exceptions to § 1447(d)'s bar on
appellate review. See § 1447(d) (1946 ed., Supp. III). Then,
as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress created
appellate jurisdiction over “ `order[s] remanding a case to the
State court from which it was removed pursuant to section
1443,' ” the civil rights removal statute. § 901, 78 Stat. 266,
28 U. S. C. § 1447(d) (1964 ed.). In 2011, Congress extended
this exception to cases removed pursuant to § 1442, the fed-
eral offcer removal statute. See § 1447(d) (2012 ed.).
The Court today holds that a defendant who invokes either
§ 1442 or § 1443 when removing a case to federal court is
entitled to appellate review of not just those grounds, but
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also any other grounds for removal the defendant asserts. I
d
isagree. That interpretati on lets defendants sidestep
§ 1447(d)'s bar on appellate review by shoehorning a § 1442
or § 1443 argument into their case for removal. In other
words, it lets the exception swallow the rule. Furthermore,
when Congress amended § 1447(d) to permit appellate review
of decisions under § 1442, every Court of Appeals to have
addressed the question interpreted § 1447(d) to permit appel-
late review of arguments under § 1443 only, not of other ar-
guments for removal addressed in the same order. If Con-
gress wanted to disturb that consensus, it would have said
so. I respectfully dissent.
I
Section 1447(d) permits appellate review of “an order re-
manding a case to the State court from which it was removed
pursuant to section 1442 or 1443.” Everyone agrees how
this provision operates in two scenarios. First, if a defend-
ant removes a suit to federal court without invoking either
§ 1442 or § 1443, appellate courts may not review the district
court's remand order. Second, if a defendant removes a suit
solely under § 1442 or § 1443, appellate review is available for
the remand order addressing that single ground for removal.
But what if a defendant removes a case to federal court
on multiple grounds, only one of which is § 1442 or § 1443?
Section 1447(d) does not speak clearly to that scenario. In
some statutes, Congress takes care to specify when it means
“this and only this ground.” See, e. g., § 1446(b)(2)(A) (ad-
dressi ng civ i l ac ti ons “removed solely under sec ti on
1441(a)”). Other times, Congress makes clear that reliance
on a certain ground even “in part” will suffce. See, e. g.,
§ 1295(a)(2) (providing for jurisdiction in the Court of Ap-
peals for the Federal Circuit over certain district court deci-
sions “if the jurisdiction of that court was based, in whole or
in part, on section 1346 of this title”). Section 1447(d) con-
tains neither kind of clarifying language, leaving uncertain
how the provision applies to cases that are not removed
under § 1442 or § 1443 alone. See Board of Cty. Comm'rs of
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Sotomayor, J., dissenting
Boulder Cty. v. Suncor Energy (U. S. A.) Inc., 965 F. 3d 792,
805
(CA10 2020) (Section 1447(d) “does not expressly contem-
plate the situation in which removal is done pursuant to one
of these sections and other grounds” (internal quotation
marks omitted)).
There are three possible ways forward. The frst possibil-
ity is that § 1447(d) permits appellate review of any asserted
basis for removal so long as the suit was removed in part
pursuant to § 1442 or § 1443. That is the interpretation
urged by petitioners and adopted by the Court today. See
ante, at 237–239. The problem with this interpretation is
that it stretches the exception in § 1447(d) too far. It allows
defendants to bootstrap their entire case for removal into the
court of appeals simply by tacking on an argument under
§ 1442 or § 1443. Indeed, under this interpretation, a de-
fendant could formally abandon its argument under § 1442 or
§ 1443 and seek an appeal exclusively of other grounds for
removal. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 34–36, 40–41. That bizarre
outcome, inexplicable in light of the manifest objective of
limiting the exceptions in § 1447(d), cautions heavily against
this interpretation.
Another possibility is that a suit removed pursuant to mul-
tiple grounds is not a suit removed pursuant to § 1442 or
§ 1443 at all, meaning no appellate review whatsoever is
available under § 1447(d). For good reason, no one advo-
cates this interpretation. Such a rule would certainly avoid
prolonged disputes about whether a case belongs in state or
federal court, but only by denying appellate review for
claims of jurisdiction under the federal-offcer and civil-
rights removal statutes. That result is hard to square with
Congress' express directive that such claims get a second
look.
The third possibility is that § 1447(d) allows appellate re-
view of a defendant's assertion of removal jurisdiction under
the federal-offcer or civil-rights removal statute alone.
Any other grounds for removal would remain subject to
§ 1447(d)'s bar on appellate review. This interpretation best
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accords with “Congress's longstanding policy of not permit-
ti
ng interruption of the litigation of the merits of a removed
case” with lengthy jurisdictional disputes, Powerex Corp.,
551 U. S., at 238 (internal quotation marks omitted), while
still allowing review of the two grounds Congress carved out
for special treatment. It also follows this Court's usual pol-
icy of construing both statutory exceptions and procedures
for removal narrowly. See Maracich v. Spears, 570 U. S. 48,
60 (2013) (Statutory exceptions are to be “narrowly [con-
strued] in order to preserve the primary operation of the
provision” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Syngenta
Crop Protection, Inc. v. Henson, 537 U. S. 28, 32 (2002)
(“[S]tatutory procedures for removal are to be strictly con-
strued” out of respect for state sovereignty).
Over the course of several decades, eight Courts of Ap-
peals (every one to consider the question) adopted this third
view of § 1447(d).* See, e. g., Patel v. Del Taco, Inc., 446
F. 3d 996, 998 (CA9 2006); Alabama v. Conley, 245 F. 3d 1292,
1293, n. 1 (CA11 2001) (per curiam); Thornton v. Holloway,
70 F. 3d 522, 524 (CA8 1995); State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co.
v. Baasch, 644 F. 2d 94, 96–97 (CA2 1981) (per curiam); De-
troit Police Lieutenants and Sergeants Assn. v. Detroit, 597
F. 2d 566, 567–568 (CA6 1979) (per curiam); Noel v. McCain,
538 F. 2d 633, 635 (CA4 1976); Robertson v. Ball, 534 F. 2d
63, 65–66 (CA5 1976) (per curiam); Pennsylvania ex rel.
Gittman v. Gittman, 451 F. 2d 155, 156–157 (CA3 1971)
(per curiam).
Congress legislated against the backdrop of this consensus
when, in 2011, it amended § 1447(d) to extend its appellate-
*The Tenth Circuit had also reached this conclusion prior to Congress
amending § 1447(d), albeit in an unpublished opinion. See Sanchez v.
Onuska, 2 F. 3d 1160 (Table), 1993 WL 307897, *1 (1993) (per curiam).
The Tenth Circuit has since reaffrmed that holding in a published opinion.
See Board of Cty. Comm'rs of Boulder Cty. v. Suncor Energy (U. S. A.)
Inc., 965 F. 3d 792, 802, n. 6 (2020).
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Sotomayor, J., dissenting
review exception, which previously applied to § 1443 alone,
to
cover § 1442 as well. Critically, Congress did not amend
the remainder of the provision. Instead, it simply added the
words “1442 or.” See Removal Clarifcation Act, 125 Stat.
546. Had Congress disagreed with the settled interpreta-
tion of § 1447(d), it presumably would have done something
about it.
The Court dismisses the possibility of congressional ratif-
cation by characterizing an unbroken line of decisions from
two-thirds of the Courts of Appeals spanning nearly half a
century as “a smattering of lower court opinions.” Ante, at
244. I would not assume that so many decisions reaching
the same conclusion over such a long period were beneath
Congress' notice. “ `If a word or phrase has been given a
uniform interpretation by inferior courts, a later version of
that act perpetuating the wording is presumed to carry for-
ward that interpretation.' ” Texas Dept. of Housing and
Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc.,
576 U. S. 519, 536 (2015) (quoting A. Scalia & B. Garner,
Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 322 (2012);
ellipses omitted). That Congress did not disturb the pre-
vailing interpretation of § 1447(d) is a compelling reason this
Court should not either.
II
The Court sees things differently. In its view, it “does
[not] matter” whether “a defendant removes a case `pursuant
to' multiple federal statutes” or just one. Ante, at 238.
Either way, § 1447(d) grants the court of appeals jurisdiction
over the “order” remanding the case back to state court.
According to the Court, once the court of appeals takes juris-
diction over an order, it necessarily takes jurisdiction over
all grounds for removal encompassed within it.
In support of this theory, the Court looks to Yamaha
Motor Corp., U. S. A. v. Calhoun, 516 U. S. 199 (1996). That
case concerned 28 U. S. C. § 1292(b), a distinct statute that
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permits appellate review of an interlocutory “order not oth-
er
wise appealable” if the district court certifes that the
order “involves a controlling question of law as to which
there is substantial ground for difference of opinion.”
§ 1292(b). Looking to “the text of § 1292(b),” the Yamaha
Court determined that, having taken jurisdiction over a
§ 1292(b) order, a court of appeals may reach any issue fairly
encompassed within it. 516 U. S., at 205. In the Court's
view today, Yamaha means that appellate review of a re-
mand order under § 1447(d) must likewise be plenary.
Yamaha does not do the work the Court says it does.
Section 1292(b) provides that an interlocutory order is ap-
pealable if it merely “involves” a certifed issue. There was
thus no question in Yamaha that § 1292(b) accounts for certi-
fed orders that address multiple issues, some of which are
not “controlling question[s] of law as to which there is sub-
stantial ground for difference of opinion.” § 1292(b). Sec-
tion 1447(d) lacks comparable language about what happens
when a party removes a case on multiple grounds. That is
precisely what makes it ambiguous.
The Court is left with the premise that appellate jurisdic-
tion over an order (as with a judgment, decree, or sentence)
usually means jurisdiction over all legal issues addressed
within it. Ante, at 237–239. I agree that this premise will
often hold true. But not always, as the Court itself recog-
nizes. See ante, at 242–243 (discussing Murdock v. Mem-
phis, 20 Wall. 590 (1875), and United States v. Keitel, 211
U. S. 370 (1908)). Context matters. To recap, in 1964, Con-
gress created a limited exception for claims of removal under
§ 1443 to what had long been an absolute prohibition on ap-
pellate review of remand orders. After nearly half a cen-
tury of courts interpreting that exception narrowly, Con-
gress extended the exception to § 1442 without otherwise
amending § 1447(d). Section 1447(d) only unambiguously
permits appellate review over remand orders that are based
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Sotomayor, J., dissenting
solely on one of those two grounds. Granting defendants
appel
late review of other grounds of removal whenever they
tack on an argument under § 1442 or § 1443 would allow the
exception to trump the rule. In these circumstances, the
Court should seek an interpretation of § 1447(d) that not only
respects its carveout for arguments under § 1442 and § 1443
but also preserves its general bar on appellate review.
III
Unfortunately, I fear today's decision will reward defend-
ants for raising strained theories of removal under § 1442 or
§ 1443 by allowing them to circumvent the bar on appellate
review entirely. Look no further than this case. In 2018,
the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore sued petitioners for
allegedly concealing the connection between fossil fuels and
climate change. Petitioners listed eight grounds for re-
moval to federal court, including § 1442. But petitioners
now ask only for a ruling that removal was proper under
§ 1441(a) (i. e., federal-question jurisdiction). Had petition-
ers relied solely on § 1441(a) before the District Court, as
they do now, no one disputes their argument would be unre-
viewable on appeal.
Not to worry, petitioners assure us: The threat of sanctions
will suffciently deter gamesmanship. While sanctions help
ward off egregious misconduct, they are no failsafe. See,
e. g., Martin v. Franklin Capital Corp., 546 U. S. 132, 141
(2005) (“Absent unusual circumstances, courts may award at-
torney's fees under § 1447(c) only where the removing party
lacked an objectively reasonable basis for seeking removal”).
A federal-offcer claim can be so weak it is not worth pursu-
ing on appeal, but not so meritless as to warrant sanctions.
Again, look to this case. Petitioners no longer advance their
argument under § 1442, calling it only “substantial.” Brief
for Petitioners 35. Yet that argument somehow opens a
back door to appellate review that would otherwise be closed
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to them. Meanwhile, Baltimore, which has already waited
near
ly three years to begin litigation on the merits, is con-
signed to waiting once more.
***
Section 1447(d) places “broad restrictions on the power of
federal appellate courts to review district court orders re-
manding removed cases to state court.” Things Remem-
bered, Inc. v. Petrarca, 516 U. S. 124, 127 (1995). After to-
day's decision, defendants can sidestep these restrictions by
making near-frivolous arguments for removal under § 1442
or § 1443. Congress, of course, can amend § 1447(d) to make
even clearer that appellate review of a district court remand
order extends to only § 1442 or § 1443. Because I believe
§ 1447 already bears that meaning, I respectfully dissent.
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