Case Law Updates
The Fourth Circuit issued a decision on September 9, 2025, holding that states lack Article III standing, and as such also lack the ability to bring a federal lawsuit, alleging harm from the termination of probationary federal employees and requesting the relief of reinstatement.
On March 11, 2025, the Secretary of Education initiated reduction-in-force proceedings, seeking to reduce the Department’s workforce by roughly 50 percent. The President subsequently ordered the Secretary of Education to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education” in a March 20,
On June 5, at the end of October 2024 term, the Supreme Court held that majority group members do not need to meet a higher evidentiary standard to demonstrate unlawful discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Last month, the Supreme Court issued a decision holding that the right to a jury trial extends to the issue of administrative exhaustion when the exhaustion issue is intertwined with the merits of a claim requiring a jury trial.
The Supreme Court has previously held that when a police officer uses deadly force, he violates the Fourth Amendment when the force used is not “objectively reasonable.” To determine the reasonableness of the force, the Supreme Court requires an assessment of the “totality of the circumstances.”
The Whistleblower Protection Act (“WPA”) prohibits federal agencies from retaliating against an employee for, among other things, disclosing information reasonably believed to be evidence of a violation of any law, rule, or regulation.
The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act requires federal agencies to consider military services members for any advantage of employment that they would have been entitled to but for their absence for military service obligations.
On December 9, counsel for petitioner Nick Feliciano, an air traffic controller for the Federal Aviation Administration and Coast Guard reserve officer, argued before the Supreme Court that Mr. Feliciano should be entitled to differential pay that matches his federal salary while ordered to active reserve duty.
The Merit Systems Protection Board (“Board”) recently issued a precedential decision holding that an employee’s personal complaints and grievances about how an Agency treated them may constitute “nonfrivolous allegations of disclosures” of an abuse of authority.
For decades, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) applied divorce court orders granting marital share of former employees’ retirement only to their basic annuity. In 2016, OPM began to apply the share to the annuity supplement.