Feds push Ninth Circuit to undo corrected employment records of fired workers

A Justice Department attorney told a Ninth Circuit panel that a lower court lacked jurisdiction to order federal agencies to correct the records of thousands of fired probationary employees, arguing such claims belong before the Federal Labor Relations Authority or Merit Systems Protection Board instead. Judge William Alsup had found the Office of Personnel Management unlawfully directed mass terminations and ordered agencies to notify workers their firings weren't performance-based.

The case has already reached the Supreme Court once, which paused reinstatement of the fired workers, before returning to Alsup, who ruled probationary employees still had standing and later granted partial summary judgment against OPM. He stopped short of ordering reinstatement, citing how much time had passed.

Judge Morgan Christen pressed the government's attorney on whether unions or affected workers would simply have no path to judicial review under his theory; he agreed that was correct. Plaintiffs' counsel countered that Congress never intended to shield OPM's actions from review, particularly for probationary workers with no other appeal channel.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.