April 7 (UPI) — A court ruled Monday to temporarily reinstate two members of independent federal boards fired by President Donald Trump.
The rare 7-4 decision by the full U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia took out a ruling last month by a three-judge panel that sided with the U.S. government in the firings of National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox and Cathy Harris, a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board.
It sets up a likely showdown in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The two boards sit as oversight for employee grievances in both the private sector and federal government and arrived amid sweeping mass firings in the federal workforce led by the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Further, without Harris and Wilcox the two independent panels lacked a quorum to conduct official business.
“The Supreme Court has repeatedly told the courts of appeals to follow extant Supreme Court precedent unless and until that Court itself changes it or overturns it,” read the unsigned court ruling in part.
A district court previously ruled the firings unlawful, citing federal law stating firings must be justified by means of “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”
The two Biden-appointed officials sued the Trump White House which gave no reason for the arbitrary terminations.
The administration, meanwhile, took the position that its removal protections were “unconstitutional.”
A lower court ruling in March deemed illegal Trump’s firing of Federal Labor Relations Authority Chair Susan Grundmannm, who was appointed by then-President Joe Biden.
U.S. Circuit Judge Karen Henderson, an appointee of ex-President George H.W. Bush, wrote in a dissent how the nation’s high court “can decide the dispute and, in my opinion, the sooner, the better,” she said.
Henderson joined Trump-appointed circuit court judges Gregory Katsas, Neomi Rao and Justin Walker.
Rao claimed there is “simply no precedent” for such “expansive” judicial action against the executive branch of government’s “wielding” of “essential executive powers.”
“Without considering the difficult questions regarding the scope of the court’s equitable or legal authority, the en banc majority blesses the district court’s unprecedened injunctions and purports to reinstate principal officers ousted by the President,” added Rao. “In doing so, the majority threatens to send this court headlong into a clash with the Executive.”
