A Federal appeals court gave the Trump administration the green light today to fire thousands of Federal probationary workers by overturning a lower court’s order that had required them to be reinstated.
Today’s decision came a day after a similar order from the Supreme Court lifted a lower court order that had reinstated thousands of fired probationary workers at six Federal agencies.
In a 2-1 decision today, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided in favor of the administration and stayed a ruling from a district court after finding that the administration was likely to prevail, and that the lower court lacked jurisdiction in the case. Today’s appeals court decision also referenced yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Trump administration.
In its decision today, the appeals court did not rule on whether the firings of Federal probationary employees were lawful, and referred appeals to a separate employment process.
The lawsuit was brought by nearly two dozen states and the District of Columbia who said that the mass firings would cause irreparable harm and expenses.
The states filing the suit will still have the ability to request further review of their suit following the stay order.
In a separate case, the Trump administration on Wednesday afternoon asked the Supreme Court in a request for emergency relief to halt lower court decisions that prevented the administration from firing a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).
In an order handed down Monday, the appeals court relied on a landmark Supreme Court decision from 1935 that held the president cannot dismiss officials from quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial agencies except for reasons permitted by Congress. The ruling noted that it would be up to the Supreme Court to decide otherwise whether the precedent applied in this case.
The MSPB has played an important role in Federal employee firings after President Donald Trump’s reduction in force executive order in February ordered agencies to downsize. The board is responsible for protecting against prohibited personnel and partisan political practices.