Federal Judge Orders 18 Federal Agencies to Give Employees Their Jobs Back by Monday
A federal judge in the United States District Court for Maryland issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) for 18 federal agencies, ordering them to stop the illegal mass layoffs of federal probationary employees and to reinstate fired employees by 1:00 pm on Monday, March 17, 2025.
The TRO order comes seven days after Attorney General Charity Clark joined a coalition of 20 attorneys general on March 6, 2025, in suing numerous federal agencies for causing irreparable injuries to Vermont and the other plaintiff states. The lawsuit sought immediate relief. The TRO stops the unlawful mass firings, orders the agencies to give those employees their jobs back, and applies to the following 18 federal agencies:
- Department of Agriculture
- Department of Commerce
- Department of Education
- Department of Energy
- Department of Health and Human Services
- Department of Homeland Security
- Department of Housing and Urban Development
- Department of Interior
- Department of Labor
- Department of Transportation
- Department of Treasury
- Department of Veterans Affairs
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
- Environmental Protection Agency
- Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
- General Services Administration
- Small Business Administration
- United States Agency for International Development
To learn more about the original lawsuit, please read here. The motion is available here. The order is available here.
Attorney General Clark was joined in this lawsuit by the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.
CONTACT: Amelia Vath, Outreach and Communications Coordinator, 802-828-3171