Appeals court halts rehiring of 24,000 federal workers

A federal appeals court Wednesday paused a lower court's ruling ordering the government to rehire around 24,000 probationary workers.

"The Government is likely to succeed in showing the district court lacked jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ claims," the 2-1 ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said, staying an order last month that the workers be rehired.

The panel said it was pausing the ruling until it decides the government's full appeal.

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The decision effectively ends the last injunction directing that the workers get their jobs back. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court issued a similar ruling, halting a federal judge’s order in California requiring several federal agencies to reinstate around 16,000 workers the Trump administration had sought to fire.

The 4th Circuit decision involved a broader ruling from a federal judge in Maryland who sided with a coalition of states that had argued the government didn't follow proper procedures for firing that many employees.

“In this case, the government conducted massive layoffs, but it gave no advanced notice. It claims it wasn’t required to because, it says, it dismissed each one of these thousands of probationary employees for ‘performance’ or other individualized reasons. On the record before the Court, this isn’t true,” U.S. District Judge James Bredar wrote in his March 13 ruling. “They were all just fired. Collectively.”

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The appeals court judges who ruled in favor of the pause were Trump appointee Allison Jones Rushing and Reagan appointee J. Harvie Wilkinson III.

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The dissenting judge was DeAndrea Benjamin, a Biden appointee. She called Bredar's ruling "well-reasoned" and said states "clearly have standing to challenge the process by which the Government has engaged in mass firings."

The administration "was legally required to inform the States at least 60 days before any reduction in force. The Government failed to do so," she wrote.

The panel scheduled oral arguments for May 6.