Appeals court grants ‘striking’ temporary stay in Trump’s firing of board leaders

A D.C. federal appeals court on Friday handed the Trump administration a temporary victory, overturning district court rulings that ordered the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) Gwynne Wilcox and the Merit Systems Protection Board’s Cathy Harris to be reinstated.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ordered NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox to be reinstated after her dismissal by President Donald Trump earlier this year. 

Friday’s ruling halts both reinstatements while the case proceeds.

President Trump and Cathy Harris (Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images; U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, right. )

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Wilcox filed a lawsuit Feb. 5 in D.C. federal court, claiming her Jan. 27 firing violated the congressional statute outlining NLRB appointments and removals. 

Trump told Wilcox in a letter she was being fired because the NLRB had not “been operating in a manner consistent with the objectives of [his] administration.”

He also cited multiple recent board decisions, claiming Wilcox was “unduly disfavoring the interests of employers.”

On Feb. 10, Wilcox requested a summary judgment on an expedited basis, and, after a hearing on March 5, the district court ruled she could remain a member of the NLRB.

President Trump fired National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox, left, who told U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, right, that the president does not have the legal authority to do so. (NLRB; AP Photo; U.S. District Court)

In a similar suit, Harris, a Democrat who led the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), argued Trump did not have the authority to terminate her Feb. 10 and that he did not provide a reason for the firing.

However, unlike Wilcox, she did not receive a letter from the president, according to court documents.

She sued Feb. 11, and a district court later granted her a temporary restraining order, reinstating her to the MSPB.

The E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, D.C. (David Ake/Getty Images)

Howell previously said the case seemed to go beyond his purview, stating, “I realize for both sides this court is merely a speedbump to get to the Supreme Court.”

Concurring opinions by D.C. Circuit Court judges Justin R. Walker and Karen LeCraft Henderson noted the Supreme Court’s precedent that Congress cannot restrict the president’s removal authority over agencies that “wield substantial executive power” weighed heavily in the case.

The NLRB and MSPB are executive branch agencies.

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A dissenting opinion by D.C. Circuit Court Judge Patricia A. Millett claimed the two opinions granting the stay “rewrite controlling Supreme Court precedent and ignore the binding rulings of this court, all in favor of putting this court in direct conflict with at least two other circuits.”

The stay decision also marks the first time in history a court of appeals or the Supreme Court allowed the firing of members of multi-member adjudicatory boards “statutorily protected by the very type of removal restriction the Supreme Court has twice unanimously upheld,” Millet said.

A federal appeals court on Friday handed the Trump administration a temporary victory. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

She called the idea of making a decision Friday “striking,” claiming the decision will leave “hundreds of unresolved legal claims that the Political Branches jointly and deliberately channeled to these expert adjudicatory entities.”

Millet added the majority decisions’ rationale “openly calls into question the constitutionality of dozens of federal statutes conditioning the removal of officials on multi-member decision-making bodies — everything from the Federal Reserve Board and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the National Transportation Safety Board and the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.”

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“That would be an extraordinary decision for a lower federal court to make under any circumstances,” she wrote in the dissenting opinion. “I cannot join a decision that uses a hurried and preliminary first-look ruling by this court to announce a revolution in the law that the Supreme Court has expressly avoided, and to trap in legal limbo millions of employees and employers whom the law says must go to these boards for the resolution of their employment disputes.”

Fox News Digital’s Jake Gibson contributed to this report.