On June 19, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, sitting en banc, denied the CFPB’s motion to modify the stay pending appeal to permit immediate implementation of a reduction-in-force (RIF) plan but granted the agency’s alternative request for a limited remand to the district court. As previously covered by InfoBytes, the CFPB moved in March to modify the stay to allow it to carry out a RIF that would cut staff from 1,174 to 556 or, in the alternative, obtain a limited remand to the district court to reconsider the preliminary injunction. The union representing the CFPB’s employees opposed the Bureau’s request to implement the RIF immediately and, though not objecting to the limited remand itself, argued there was no basis for imposing what it called an “arbitrary” 45-day deadline on the remand proceedings (covered by InfoBytes here).

The en banc court remanded the record for the district court to decide in the first instance whether to modify, suspend, or dissolve the preliminary injunction in light of the CFPB’s issuance of a revised RIF plan and other intervening developments identified in the Bureau’s motion. The court denied the CFPB’s request to impose a 45-day deadline on the remand, noting that the district court had “moved expeditiously throughout this litigation” and that it assumed it will continue doing so. The court granted the CFPB’s unopposed motion to hold the appeal in abeyance and stated the en banc court would retain jurisdiction over the appeal. Four judges noted they would wait until the legal questions pending before the en banc court were resolved before remanding to the district court. The parties were directed to file motions to govern future proceedings no later than 21 days following the district court’s decision.