Judge orders Trump administration to reinstate thousands of probationary workers across 18 agencies

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge is ordering the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of previously terminated probationary employees across 18 different agencies.

U.S. District Judge James Bredar issued a temporary restraining order Thursday evening that requires the probationary employees be reinstated by March 17 and stops any ongoing mass firings.

This evening's order came in a case brought by 20 Democratic attorneys general who sued to block the firings last week and is separate from a California judge's decision also dealing with probationary employees that was issued earlier Thursday.

The order covers every major department other than the Pentagon, including the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Transportation and Veterans Affairs.

The judge's order comes after a hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Maryland.

A total of 20 Democratic attorneys general had sued to block the firings last week.

"These large-scale, indiscriminate firings are not only subjecting the Plaintiff States and communities across the country to chaos. They are also against the law," the Democratic officials argued in their complaint, which named 41 agencies and agency heads as defendants.

The attorneys general have argued that the Trump administration violated federal law with the firings by failing to give a required 60-day notice for a reduction in force, opting to pursue the terminations "suddenly and without any advance notice."

Lawyers with the Department of Justice have argued that the states lack standing because they "cannot interject themselves into the employment relationship between the United States and government workers," and that to grant the temporary restraining order would "circumvent" the administrative process for challenging the firings.

In separate lawsuits, two other federal judges have declined to immediately block firings of federal employees or to reinstate them to their positions.

"The third time is not the charm. Like the unions and the organizational plaintiffs, the States are strangers to the employment relationships at issue and cannot disrupt the exclusive remedial scheme that Congress put in place to adjudicate these disputes," lawyers with the DOJ argued.