Judge Orders Trump Admin to Reinstate Fired Merit Systems Protection Board Chair

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras during the investiture ceremony for U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden at the U.S. District Court in Washington on April 13, 2018. Alex Wong/Getty Images

A federal judge on Feb. 18 ordered President Donald Trump and other federal officials to reinstate Cathy A. Harris, who Trump recently removed as chairwoman of the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras entered the order, siding with Harris at least temporarily.

The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) is an independent executive branch agency that handles executive branch employment disputes. Harris has been serving since 2022, after the Senate confirmed her nomination by President Joe Biden.

The White House informed Harris on Feb. 10 that she was terminated, effective immediately. The termination email did not give a reason for the termination.

Harris sued the following day, arguing that per law she can only be removed “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

In a motion for a temporary restraining order, Harris asked Contreras to declare the removal unlawful and stop government officials from removing her from her position or treating her as having been removed.

The motion said Harris is likely to succeed unless the protection she has against removal absent cause is found unconstitutional, which her lawyers said is unlikely based on on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1935 ruling known as Humphrey’s Executor, which upheld a similar restriction on the president’s authority to remove members of a federal commission.

“Interim relief is further justified because Ms. Harris is suffering irreparable injury from Defendants’ conduct, which is depriving her in real time of her statutory entitlement to serve as a Member of the MSPB,” they said.

Government lawyers said in response that the president was exercising his constitutional authority when he removed Harris.

“Because the MSPB wields significant executive power, its Members fall squarely within the President’s removal power. For that reason, Humphrey’s Executor—which carved out a narrow exception to that removal power for multimember bodies with ‘quasi-judicial’ or ‘quasi-legislative’ functions that exercise no executive power—does not apply,” they said.

Contreras, the judge, said that the Supreme Court ruling and others that followed in later years means Harris is protected from termination absent cause until her term runs out.

“The Court thus concludes that Harris has demonstrated that she is likely to show her termination as a member of the MSPB was unlawful,” he wrote.

The judge also agreed that Harris would suffer irreparable harm without the restraining order.

He said that the relief is temporary and that Harris can ask for a preliminary injunction, which would be more permanent as the case proceeds. If she does, she was instructed to file a motion by Feb. 24, with a hearing slated for March 3.