(The Center Square) – A federal appeals court on Wednesday handed President Donald Trump and his administration another legal win when it stayed an order that would have required the president to rehire probationary employees.
The appeals court put that rehiring order on pause. In a 2-1 ruling Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily set aside a Maryland judge’s injunction that had ordered agencies to reinstate employees in 19 states and the District of Columbia.
The majority found the government was likely to succeed in proving that the Maryland district court lacked jurisdiction over the state claims that federal agencies had engaged in an illegal reduction in force.
“The Government is likely to succeed in showing the district court lacked jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ claims, and the Government is unlikely to recover the funds disbursed to reinstated probationary employees,” the court said.
It noted that the U.S. Supreme Court stayed a similar preliminary injunction issued by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that the Trump administration can keep thousands of probationary workers off of the federal payroll as lawsuits challenging the administration’s plan to fire them play out in court.
In an unsigned, two-page decision, the Supreme Court stayed a preliminary injunction placed on the administration’s attempt to remove about 16,000 probationary employees from the payroll. Several unions had filed suit arguing the terminations are illegal, but the Supreme Court said the unions didn’t have standing in the case.
