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US court skeptical of ruling that reinstated thousands of federal workers

ReutersAug 19, 2025 10:05 PM

By Daniel Wiessner

- Judges on a U.S. appeals court panel on Tuesday said a lower court judge who ordered the administration of President Donald Trump to reinstate 17,000 fired federal workers likely lacked the ability to hear the case at all.

A three-judge 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in San Francisco heard oral arguments in the administration's appeal of a ruling that said the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in February wrongly ordered six agencies to fire probationary employees en masse.

Probationary workers typically have less than one year of service in their current roles, though some are longtime federal employees in new roles, and they have fewer job protections than other government workers.

The administration fired roughly 25,000 probationary employees, an early step in Trump's efforts to dramatically downsize the federal bureaucracy.

Two Trump appointees on the 9th Circuit panel said it seemed that the unions that sued over the firings were instead required to take their claims to the Merit Systems Protection Board, which hears federal workers' appeals when they are fired or disciplined.

Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke said it was "crazy" and "weird" that the American Federation of Government Employees and other unions opted to sue OPM instead of challenging the individual firings at the merit board.

“There’s a problem here,” he said. “It seems to be circumventing an agency process and it’s doing it by grabbing hold of an agency that never fired anybody."

The three-member merit board currently lacks a quorum to decide cases after Trump in January fired a Democratic member, Cathy Harris, in an unprecedented move. The U.S. Supreme Court in May allowed Harris to be removed while her lawsuit challenging her termination plays out.

More than 13,000 appeals have been filed with the board since Trump took office in January.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup in March had said that OPM improperly directed the firings by telling agencies they should terminate all but the most critical probationary workers. The Supreme Court in April stayed the ruling, which applied to the U.S. Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Energy, Interior and Treasury, pending the appeal.

The employees had been reinstated before the Supreme Court's decision, though many were placed on administrative leave and did not return to work. The practical impact of a ruling reversing Alsup is unclear, as many probationary workers have lost or could soon lose their jobs as part of broader federal layoffs.

Circuit Judge Daniel Bress on Tuesday said that if the firings were illegal, the unions should have gone after the individual agencies in seeking to have workers reinstated.

“You don’t need OPM to be a defendant or a party in that process in order to be able to achieve that result,” Bress said to Danielle Leonard, who argued for the unions.

Leonard countered that the core claim in the lawsuit is that OPM unlawfully created a rule redefining when probationary workers can be fired without going through the administrative process required by federal law. The merit board cannot resolve that claim, she said.

Circuit Judge Morgan Christen broke with her colleagues, saying that in merit board cases the defendants are the employing agencies.

The unions “are not asserting that. They’re asserting that OPM acted outside its authority," said Christen, an appointee of President Barack Obama, a Democrat.

A federal judge in Maryland had separately ruled in March that the firings of probationary workers were unlawful because agencies failed to give states advance notice as required by federal law. The Virginia-based 4th Circuit paused that decision and is expected to rule soon on the administration's appeal.

The case is AFGE v. OPM, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 25-1677.

For the unions: Danielle Leonard of Altshuler Berzon

For the government: Emily Hall of the U.S. Department of Justice

Read more:

US Supreme Court halts reinstatement of fired federal employees

US judge halts Trump administration's calls for mass firings at agencies

Trump administration ordered to retract 'sham' rationale for firing workers

Trump moves to ease firing of recently-hired federal workers

US appeals court sides with Trump, clears way to fire thousands of federal workers

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