On February 27, 2025, U.S. District Court Judge William H. Alsup granted a temporary restraining order against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and its Acting Director, Charles Ezell, finding that OPM unlawfully ordered other federal agencies to terminate tens of thousands of their probationary employees, explaining that OPM has no legal authority to direct other agencies to fire their own employees. Judge Alsup also called probationary federal employees “the lifeblood of our government,” and said that when federal agencies fire employees for no reason, “that’s just not right in our country,” adding that we can’t “run our agencies with lies.” “The Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe to hire and fire employees at another agency,” he stated. In a written order issued by the Court on February 28, Judge Alsup wrote that, “The weight of the evidence supports plaintiffs’ contention that OPM exceeded the bounds of its authority by unlawfully directing the mass termination of probationary employees across a wide range of federal agencies,” and that “Plaintiffs are also likely to show that the OPM directive was an arbitrary and capricious action.”
In his written order, Judge Alsup held that efforts by OPM to “direct the termination of employees” at certain agencies “are unlawful, invalid, and must be stopped and rescinded,” and directed OPM to provide written notice of the order to those agencies. The affected agencies listed in the Court’s order are the Department of Defense, which had been poised to terminate thousands of probationary employees on February 28, as well as the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish & Wildlife Service, and the Small Business Administration. In his bench ruling, Judge Alsup also ordered the government to disclose by March 3 the participants on a February 13 call between OPM and federal agency heads, which is widely reported to have been the occasion when OPM ordered other agencies to fire their probationary employees. The Court has scheduled an evidentiary hearing for March 13.
Altshuler Berzon LLP and co-counsel at the State Democracy Defenders Fund filed this complaint and motion for a temporary restraining order on behalf of a coalition of plaintiffs including the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE); American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); Main Street Alliance; the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks; Common Defense Civic Engagement; the Western Watersheds Project; AFGE Local 1216; AFGE Local 2110; VoteVets; and United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP). The Court’s February 28 Order can be found here.
The TRO is an important first step, and Altshuler Berzon LLP will continue to litigate this case to hold the government accountable for the unlawful firing of thousands of probationary employees across the country.
March 10, 2025 Update: On March 5, 2025, Plaintiffs filed a request for leave to file a second amended complaint, in which they are joined by additional organizations, including the American Public Health Association, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, the American Geophysical Union, Climate Resilient Communities, Point Blue Conservation Science, and the State of Washington, in making their claims against OPM. Plaintiffs also joined the federal agencies who received OPM’s instructions as defendants necessary to effectuate relief. The proposed second amended complaint is attached here. A hearing on Plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction is scheduled to begin at 8 am on Thursday, March 13, 2025.