On March 17, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied a request from the Trump administration for an immediate administrative stay of a California district court order issued last week. The 9th Circuit’s order required the reinstatement of some probationary federal workers fired from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, and the Treasury as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce.

As previously covered by InfoBytes, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California denied the request from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, et al., to stay a preliminary injunction that ordered the reinstatement of probationary employees at various federal agencies.

In support of its decision, the 9th Circuit explained that “[g]iven that the district court found that the employees were wrongfully terminated and ordered an immediate return to the status quo ante, an administrative stay of the district court’s order would not preserve the status quo. It would do just the opposite — it would disrupt the status quo and turn it on its head.”