A federal appeals court issued a divided decision on Tuesday, instructing a lower-court judge in Maryland to throw out a lawsuit brought by Democratic state attorneys general against the Trump administration for mass layoffs of federal employees.
According to The Washington Post, the three judge panel for the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit "had been asked by the federal government to weigh the appropriateness of a preliminary injunction issued in April by U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar that instructed the Trump administration to rehire the fired probationary workers and proceed with their terminations only if they are done legally — including abiding by a federal procedure that requires states affected by mass layoffs to receive a 60-day warning, which the Trump administration did not initially give."
In the 2-1 ruling decided by a Reagan-appointed and Trump-appointed judge, respectively, the court found the attorneys general lack the standing to bring the lawsuit.
“We acknowledge that the abrupt and indiscriminate dismissal of the probationary employees here exacted all-too-human costs upon those affected,” wrote Judge Harvie Wilkinson. “But this real impact on the employees, who are not parties here, cannot govern our review.”
The ruling instructs Bredar to dismiss the case outright, unless the states appeal the case further. Per the report, "It’s unclear what impact the ruling would have on the administration’s efforts to fully carry out its plan to downsize the federal government by eliminating thousands of jobs."
This is not the only case challenging Trump's ability to ignore the 60-day notice requirement for mass layoffs; another lawsuit over this is still being litigated in California.