Supreme Court pauses order to rehire probationary federal workers

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court has blocked a judge's order for the Trump administration to rehire thousands of probationary federal workers. 

What we know:

The justices acted in the administration’s emergency appeal of a ruling by a federal judge in California ordering that 16,000 probationary employees be reinstated while a lawsuit plays out because their firings didn’t follow federal law.

The decision was unsigned delivered by way of the court's emergency docket. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson disagreed with the majority's decision.

Local perspective:

A second lawsuit, filed in Baltimore, also resulted in an order blocking the firings at the same six agencies, plus roughly a dozen more. 

U.S. District Judge James Bredar, an Obama appointee, found that the administration ignored laws set out for large-scale layoffs. Bredar ordered the firings halted for at least two weeks and the workforce returned to the status quo before the layoffs began.

19 states and Washington, D.C. filed the lawsuit, alleging the mass firings are illegal and already having an impact on state governments as they try to help those who are suddenly jobless.

The Justice Department is separately appealing the Maryland order.

The backstory:

Probationary workers have been targeted for layoffs across the federal government because they're usually new to the job and lack full civil service protection. Multiple lawsuits have been filed over the mass firings.

Lawyers for the government maintain the mass firings were lawful because individual agencies reviewed and determined whether employees on probation were fit for continued employment.

At least 24,000 probationary employees have been terminated since Trump took office, the lawsuits claim, though the government has not confirmed that number.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco ruled that the terminations were improperly directed by the Office of Personnel Management and its acting director. He ordered rehiring at the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, the Interior and the Treasury.

His order came in a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor unions and nonprofit organizations that argued they’d be affected by the reduced manpower.

Alsup, who was nominated by Democratic President Bill Clinton, expressed frustration with what he called the government’s attempt to sidestep laws and regulations by firing probationary workers with fewer legal protections.

He said he was appalled that employees were told they were being fired for poor performance despite receiving glowing evaluations just months earlier.

The administration has insisted that the agencies themselves directed the firings and they "have since decided to stand by those terminations," Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the court.