Supreme Court Asked to Halt Sweeping Injunction Affecting 16,000 Federal Employees

By Stacy M. Brown

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed an emergency application to the Supreme Court seeking to block a sweeping injunction from a federal judge in California that orders the immediate reinstatement of more than 16,000 probationary federal employees across six major agencies.

The government argues that the unprecedented mandate severely intrudes on executive authority and inflicts “intolerable harm” on the operations of the federal workforce.

However, U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who issued the injunction on March 13, had a sharply different assessment. In a dramatic ruling, Alsup ordered the Trump administration to reinstate employees fired from the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Interior, Energy, Defense, and Treasury. He also directed those agencies to stop any further terminations of probationary employees. He barred the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) from offering guidance about who should be let go.

Judge Alsup made clear that the mass firings were “based on a lie,” noting that OPM lacked the authority to order the terminations and that agencies had used template letters citing poor performance, despite employees receiving positive performance reviews.

“It’s a sad, sad day when our government would fire a good employee and say it’s based on performance when they know good and well that is based on a lie,” the judge stated.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which brought the lawsuit alongside a coalition of allies, celebrated the decision.

“We are grateful for these employees and the critical work they do, and AFGE will keep fighting until all federal employees who were unjustly and illegally fired are given their jobs back,” said AFGE President Everett Kelley.

The union also announced it had successfully moved to include the rest of the Cabinet-level departments and some independent agencies in the lawsuit, filing a motion to extend the court’s order to 16 additional agencies. Agencies subject to the current injunction must provide the court with compliance reports this week.

In a related victory for the union and its members, Judge James Bredar of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland separately ordered the administration to temporarily halt its planned reductions in force (RIFs) at 18 federal agencies. That case, brought by a coalition of state attorneys general, included the Department of Education, which had reportedly planned to terminate half its workforce. Judge Bredar found the proposed RIFs violated federal layoff regulations and ordered reinstatement of affected probationary employees.

Back in Washington, Solicitor General Sarah M. Harris, acting on behalf of the federal government, described the California ruling as a “judicial takeover” of executive personnel authority. In an emergency filing to the U.S. Supreme Court, Harris warned that the court’s decision effectively places multiple federal agencies “under receivership.”

The Justice Department argued that many agencies had affirmed their decisions to terminate employees independent of OPM’s communications and that OPM had already rescinded and clarified its guidance. Further, the affected employees are not parties to the lawsuit — rather, the plaintiffs include public interest groups and unions claiming downstream harm from diminished government services.

According to the DOJ, the plaintiffs lack Article III standing and are attempting to hijack federal employment decisions. 

“Ordering the reinstatement of more than 16,000 employees is an absurd way to remedy an injury from a delayed bathroom opening,” the department said in its filing, referring to claims that park closures and FOIA delays were among the harms cited by the plaintiffs.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the administration’s request for an emergency administrative stay on March 17, prompting the DOJ to take the matter directly to the Supreme Court.

“This Court should stop the ongoing assault on the constitutional structure before further damage is wrought,” the solicitor general’s filing concluded.

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