Challenges to Trump’s Federal Workforce Upheaval Hit Legal Snags

Opponents of the Trump administration’s dramatic efforts to downsize the federal workforce are encountering procedural hurdles in federal court as judges scrutinize where emergency relief is warranted while the cases proceed.

Critical threshold questions arising in the early stages of labor-related disputes filed by federal-sector employee unions—like whether litigation is ripe for judicial review and whether public sector unions have directly been or will be harmed by the White House’s actions—have prevented judges from granting immediate relief within the past weeks. Judges echoed concerns about the upheaval President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders have caused but concluded that certain cases should be further developed.

Legal standing and subject matter jurisdiction are common preliminary issues for courts to evaluate before determining whether emergency relief is warranted while cases play out. What’s unusual is the direction Trump’s orders have taken, raising “unique” concerns about the separation of powers while introducing novel legal arguments, said Christopher Trebilcock, an employment and labor law litigator at Clark Hill PLC.

This situation creates a delicate balance for judges, who must carefully weigh the allegations without overstepping well-established case law for analyzing threshold procedural issues, he said.

“That makes these legal issues even more high-stakes and more difficult” for courts to assess in the first instance, Trebilcock said.

The lawsuits are pushing federal courts into uncharted territory as they assess the legality of Trump’s directives, from voluntary resignation offers and plans for agencies to conduct mass terminations of civil servants. More than two dozen cases have been filed concerning the removal of agency officials, mass layoffs, resignation offers, and efforts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to access records of millions of US citizens and federal agencies, according to Bloomberg Law data.

No court has yet ruled on the merits of the cases. But courts have preliminarily blocked the administration from enforcing portions of the president’s orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that it considers illegal and discriminatory, a ban on birthright citizenship, terminating the head of an independent US agency that protects government whistleblowers, firing a federal board member that handles disciplinary actions for federal civil servants, and ending foreign assistance programs administered by the US Agency for International Development.

Skye L. Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which has filed cases on behalf of unions, told Bloomberg Law that “courts across the country have been sounding the alarm about” the actions of the administration, and “highlighting the ‘unchecked authority’” of Musk and his DOGE group, which is wielding “massive authority with minimal oversight.”

“Some judges have been cautious about granting temporary emergency relief, but they are not giving DOGE a green light to act with impunity,” she said.

Jurisdiction, Standing

At least two judges in recent weeks allowed the administration to proceed for now with its plans to fire or make mass early retirement offers to thousands of government workers, ruling that the cases aren’t yet ripe for judicial review.

They have found that courts lack subject matter jurisdiction where personnel and union disputes must first go before a relevant independent administrative labor agency.

In a separate case involving DOGE access to Labor Department data, a judge said the federal labor unions that sued hadn’t sufficiently demonstrated any direct harm to establish standing at this stage. Under this legal doctrine, a plaintiff must show that the policy or conduct being challenged caused or would likely inflict recognizable harm that only judicial relief can redress.

The unions alleged, among other things, that DOGE lacks legal authority to get into the DOL’s systems, which include non-public information such as the medical and financial records of millions of Americans.

Meanwhile, another judge declined to temporarily bar Musk and the DOGE team he’s overseeing from accessing internal systems and removing employees at multiple US agencies because the Democratic-led states that sued failed to show they’d suffer “imminent, irreparable harm” to warrant immediate relief while the case plays out.

“While the plaintiffs in litigation against the administration have, to varying degrees, strong legal arguments, it can be difficult to show a direct link between what the administration is doing and actual on-the-ground harm,” said Thomas Spiggle, founder of the Spiggle Law Firm who represents workers.

“This will change as the actions by DOGE take effect and have real-world consequences,” he said.

More Clarity?

Losing on an issue like standing isn’t always fatal to a case, however.

A union-plaintiff, for instance, could re-file their claims “and include individual members who can demonstrate actual harm suffered,” Spiggle said.

These early rulings could also aid litigants with shaping their allegations before going to court, attorneys said.

The nuances of the procedural questions—as well as the merits of the federal workforce claims— could eventually reach the US Supreme Court, they said.

The high court’s conservative majority has been inconsistent with the application of the legal doctrines concerning standing and harm, depending on the nature of the underlying dispute and the plaintiffs involved, legal observers said.

“You could see some clarity on the unique facts presented about” standing, harm, and when courts can intervene, Trebilcock said. “We’re in unique times. And these are unique actions, and oftentimes unprecedented.”