The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Monday rejected a lawsuit by a group of states calling for the reinstatement of federal agency employees.

A group of 19 states and Washington, DC, filed a lawsuit against the 21 US agencies that engaged in the firing, stating that the mass firings of over 25,000 agency employees in February, ordered by President Donald Trump’s administration, violate the Reduction in Force (RIF) requirements. RIF requirements are implemented via regulations issued by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The plaintiff states that these agencies violated these requirements in three ways:

Plaintiffs argued that the mass terminations were unlawful because (1) the terminations were not a result of individualized, for-cause determinations, (2) they therefore constituted a RIF, and (3) the federal government did not comply with the statutory RIF requirements, which included giving

Baltimore-based US District Judge James Bredar issued an order requiring the 21 agencies to reinstate the unlawfully fired employees in April. The Fourth Circuit stayed that order.

In the Monday opinion, US Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson disagreed with the Baltimore-based judge, emphasizing the role of the courts in only adjudicating “cases and controversies” and the importance of justiciability via Article III of the US Constitution. He stated in the opinion that these states lacked standing to bring this challenge against defendant-agencies. Emphasizing that these States cannot prove that they have suffered any specific harm resulting from the mass termination of agency employees in February.

The opinion concludes with a line drawn between those affected and those bringing the lawsuit, stating, “We acknowledge that the abrupt and indiscriminate dismissal of the probationary employees here exacted all-too-human costs upon those affected. But this real impact on the employees, who are not parties here, cannot govern our review.”

Judge DeAndrea Benjamin dissented in the 2-1 ruling, stating she “will not endorse the Government’s attempt to circumvent our Nation’s laws.”

This becomes the second main decision in cases regarding the mass agency employee layoffs that occurred earlier this year. The first came from the US Supreme Court in April, in which the Court axed a federal judge’s order that required the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of terminated agency employees.