Federal judge reinstates employee appeals board member fired by Trump

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily reinstated a member of a three-person federal employee appeals board who was fired by President Trump. 

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras said Cathy Harris, who chaired the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) during the Biden administration, must be reinstated to her position and returned full access to the benefits of her office until further order of the court. The judge also barred recognizing any other person as a member of the MSPB in Harris’s position. 

“The Court concludes that Harris has established a strong likelihood of success on the merits, that irreparable harm is likely to occur in the absence of injunctive relief and that the public interest weighs in favor of enjoining Defendants’ actions,” Contreras wrote. “Harris has thus carried her burden to establish that a temporary restraining order is warranted here.” 

Harris was fired via a one-sentence email from the Presidential Personnel Office last week. She had four years left in her seven-year term on the MSPB, from which the president can only remove members for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”  

Linda Correia, a lawyer for Harris, called Trump’s directive “illegal” and indicated that Harris and the board itself stand to suffer irreparable harm over her removal. 

“Every day she is not in that position is a day she cannot exercise her deliberate judgment,” Correia said during a hearing Thursday. “And those are days she can never get back and no court can restore.” 

Justice Department lawyer Madeline McMahon said any order barring Harris’s removal would create a “significant imposition” on Trump’s executive power, contending that the president must be able to remove MSPB members at will.  

The litigation stands to reach the Supreme Court, challenging key precedent that lets Congress make presidents show cause before firing board members overseeing independent agencies.  

Overturning the 1935 ruling in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States that established that precedent would vastly expand presidential powers and clear the way for firings of critical watchdogs.

“Because the MSPB falls within the scope of Humphrey’s Executor, Congress has the power to specify that members of the MSPB may serve for a term of years, with the President empowered to remove those members only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” Contreras wrote.  

“The President did not indicate that any of these reasons drove his decision to terminate Harris,” he continued. “The Court thus concludes that Harris has demonstrated that she is likely to show her termination as a member of the MSPB was unlawful.” 

Contreras ordered Harris to submit a motion for a preliminary injunction by Feb. 23 and said the government must file its response by Feb. 28. He scheduled a hearing on the matter for March 3. 

The decision comes after a different federal judge last week blocked President Trump from firing Hampton Dellinger, head of the Office of the Special Counsel (OSC), a protector of whistleblowers.  

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an appointee of former President Obama, ruled that Trump’s decision to fire Dellinger without identifying any cause “plainly contravenes” the law.  The Justice Department appealed the judge's order.