On Monday, a federal court in Boston will determine whether to prohibit President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk from carrying out their extraordinary plan to buy out tens of thousands of federal employees.
Three federal employee unions, backed by 20 Democratic attorneys general, have asserted that the Office of Personnel Management's deferred resignation offer is a "unlawful ultimatum" to force government employees to retire under the prospect of mass firing.
"OPM's Fork Directive is a sweeping and stunningly arbitrary action to solicit blanket resignations of federal workers," wrote attorneys for the American Federation of Government Employees, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, and the National Association of Government Employees. "Defendants have not even argued -- nor could they -- that the Fork Directive was the product of rational or considered decision-making."
The buyout offer, part of Trump's drive to reduce the size of government through Musk's newly founded Department of Government Efficiency, was sent out with the subject line "Fork in the Road" -- the same terminology Musk used to cut employment at Twitter after taking over the firm in 2022.
In court, the Trump administration described the buyout as one of the first stages in the president's effort to "transform the federal workforce," claiming that any further delay would have "remarkably disruptive and inequitable repercussions."
Monday's hearing comes less than two weeks after the Office of Personnel Management sent the "Fork in the Road" email, which offered full pay and benefits until September to any federal employee who accepted a deferred resignation by February 6.
Just hours before Thursday's deadline for employees to accept the offer, U.S. District Judge George O'Toole Jr., who was nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton, temporarily delayed the offer until Monday so he could consider granting a temporary restraining order to pause the order.
"I enjoined the defendants from taking any action to implement the so-called 'Fork Directive' pending the completion of briefing and oral argument on the issues," the court's order stated. "I believe that's as far as I want to go today."
In reaction, the Trump administration "extended" the deadline for the offer, which had already been accepted by over 65,000 federal employees.
"We are grateful to the judge for extending the deadline so more federal workers who refuse to show up to the office can take the Administration up on this very generous, once-in-a-lifetime offer," said Karoline Leavitt, the Administration's press secretary
The unions who filed the case said that Trump overstepped his power as president with the offer, which they dubbed a "slapdash resignation program."
According to the plaintiffs, Trump's offer breaches federal law, lacks congressionally allocated cash, and fails to reassure employees that the president will follow through on the promise. Their claim is based in part on the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal legislation from the 1940s that governs how federal agencies develop and enforce rules.
"In the tech universe,'move fast and break things' is a fine motto, in part because they're not playing with public funds, and it's expected that most initiatives will fail," Loyola Marymount law professor Justin Leavitt told ABC News. "Congress is aware of this, so in 1946, they essentially stated, 'When agencies undertake things, they must exercise caution. "They must consider all aspects of the problem."
The plaintiffs further claimed that the buyout is illegal because it is based on funds that Congress has yet to allocate, which violates the Antideficiency Act.
"Defendants' ultimatum divides federal workers into two groups: (1) those who submit their resignations to OPM for a promised period of pay without the requirement to work, and (2) those who have not and are therefore subject to threat of mass termination," according to the lawsuit.
Lawyers for the federal government have disputed such arguments, stating that Trump has the legal power to grant the buyout for federal employees and that any further delay would be detrimental rather than beneficial.
"Extending the deadline for the acceptance of deferred resignation on its very last day will markedly disrupt the expectations of the federal workforce, inject tremendous uncertainty into a program that scores of federal employees have already availed themselves of, and hinder the Administration's efforts to reform the federal workforce," Joshua E. Gardner, an attorney with the Department of Justice, wrote the past week.
Judge O'Toole will consider imposing a temporary restraining order, which may prevent the offer from being enforced for up to two weeks.
