For the second time in two days, a higher court has put on hold a decision that would have employed thousands of government workers who were fired en mass at the recommendation of the Department of Government Efficiency.
The legal effect of this ruling is that thousands of probationary workers are once again at risk of being out of a job due to government downsizing, as Fox News reported.
A three-judge panel of the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals briefly overturned a Maryland judge's order that agencies in 19 states and the District of Columbia had to hire back their workers. The vote was 2-1 in favor of the Trump administration.
The majority thought it was likely that the government would be able to show that the Maryland district court did not have the power to hear the states' claims that federal agencies had engaged in an illegal Reduction in Force (RIF).
The decision comes just the day after the Supreme Court issued a different stay that had a similar effect on a California court's decision that forced some agencies to bring back probationary workers who had been fired.
On Tuesday, the high court put the preliminary stay on hold while claims of illegal firing go through the appeals process. The order was not signed, but it was made public, impacting the government's response.
In the Maryland case, however, Judge DeAndrea Gist Benjamin said she would have let the preliminary order stay in place, which was keeping the affected probationary workers from being fired.
“The states clearly have standing to challenge the process by which the government has engaged in mass firings,” she wrote in a dissent. “I see no reason to stay the district court’s preliminary injunction pending its appeal.”
Although court orders barring agencies from large-scale probationary worker terminations are on pause, this week's verdicts are not the end of the Maryland or California cases.
In the Maryland case, which alleges the government engaged in RIFs without the required notice to the states, the Fourth Circuit is rushing to hear full arguments on whether the preliminary injunction was legal.
In California, the court is considering issuing a new preliminary injunction to fight the Supreme Court's order from Tuesday.
The justices found that outside organizations harmed by the mass firings lacked standing to sue, but left open the possibility that other plaintiffs, including federal unions, could win an injunction.
On Wednesday, Judge William Alsup of the San Francisco Superior Court heard arguments concerning the standing of the unions to sue and obtain a second injunction.
He delayed a ruling until attorneys in the case provided more information, including data on how many employees were affected by the mass terminations, what their relationships are with the union plaintiffs, and possible evidence that the agencies' firing decisions were made at the Office of Personnel Management's request.
