Axed Federal Workers Poised for Class-Action Salvo Against Trump

Advocates of fired federal workers are poised to pivot to class actions following the recent US Supreme Court ruling that curbed universal injunctions, realigning the legal battle lines over the federal workforce.

If the Trump administration succeeds in convincing courts to remove existing injunctions, opponents are expected to counter by forming nationwide class actions— with the goal of securing secure reworked versions of the court orders that initially blocked Trump’s policies.

“The cases in which you have a central policy that is affecting everyone, there really shouldn’t be an obstacle to bringing a class action,” said Adam Zimmerman, a law professor at the University of Southern California who studies class action litigation.

Brian Fitzpatrick, a law professor at Vanderbilt University, raised associational standing as another tool for some plaintiffs. It would allow groups like the American Federation of Government Employees to continue its broad challenge to Trump’s mass layoff plans because the union sued on behalf of its members.

The conservative majority in Trump v. CASA, did away with broad injunctions that enjoin government policies, where a judge could freeze a policy nationwide due to a lawsuit from one person or a group. The Supreme Court narrowed those injunctions to apply only to the parties in the specific case, not counting class actions or Administrative Procedure Act cases, which can affect wider populations.

New Ground

At a press conference last Friday, Trump said government attorneys would “promptly file to proceed with these numerous policies and those that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis,” including ending birthright citizenship and pulling funding for sanctuary cities.

Some of Trump’s allies have been less bullish, predicting that opponents will wield class actions in the same way as universal injunctions, hunting for favorable courts and sympathetic judges.

Judges who oppose Trump are “just going to ignore that and make snap judgments and certify a class,” Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said. “Many of these cases are going to be back on.”

Many of the lawsuits against Trump’s policies also cite the APA, which allows courts to “set aside” federal government actions deemed arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.

Even some conservative justices signaled the issue wasn’t settled. Justice Samuel Alito, in a concurring opinion with Justice Clarence Thomas, said the conservative majority hadn’t adequately addressed when courts should certify a class, creating a “potentially significant loophole” in the decision. The court should have addressed whether states have standing to sue on behalf of their residents, he said.

Groups representing immigrants in Marylandand New Hampshire have already told a federal judge in Maryland they plan to seek class action certification in their challenges to Trump’s attempt to scrap the constitutionally protected right to birthright citizenship.

The approach could to spread to federal workforce cases, including the AFGE case in California, which had frozen many of Trump’s workforce cuts under a preliminary injunction.

Class and Association

The courtroom fights over Trump’s policies are set to move to a host of new questions.

Courts use a four-part test weighing whether to certify a class, all of which are fairly favorable to federal workers, legal experts said. Under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, plaintiffs must prove that the class is sufficiently large, that the members share a common grievance, that the representative parties are “typical” of the wider class, and that the representatives will adequately represent the class.

It’s a highly technical process that gives the government plenty of room to push back. Typically, all members of a class must be notified. The Trump administration can—and almost certainly will—appeal class certifications, arguing lower court judges did it wrong.

Plus, there’s a heightened risk for the plaintiffs. Under nationwide injunctions, other individual lawsuits could be brought if the first one were to fall short, said Samuel Issacharoff, a law professor at New York University. Class actionss, however, prevent additional lawsuits—meaning a win or loss is final.

One of the more challenging aspects of certifying a class is proving that the members face a common issue, legal scholars said. But that may be easier in the case of federal employees who are affected by a common action, such as a Trump executive order formalizing DOGE and the administration’s “workforce optimization initiative.” Federal workers can argue they’ve been laid off based on the same government policies and procedures.

Groups representing federal workers may also be able to continue their challenges to the Trump administration through associational and third-party standing, which holds that groups can sue on behalf of their members.

For example, if a union were to sue the Trump administration over a specific policy and win, the injunction would cover all of its members, even if they weren’t involved. That should make it easier for civil rights groups, municipalities, unions, and others to keep challenging Trump’s policies.

Alito did, however, question whether states should be able to sue on behalf of residents, suggesting the conservative majority might revisit the issue. Several municipalities, including the cities of Chicago and San Francisco, are plaintiffs in the main layoffs case.

“It’s kind of like this hydraulic pressure,” Zimmerman said. “We lose the nationwide injunction, so are there things that are going to rise in its stead?”