Last Updated: July 12, 2026 Reading Time: 9 min

Your job protections in 2026 are being decided in courtrooms, not in HR memos. At least seven active cases will determine who can fire you, who hears your appeal, whether your union contract exists, and whether a reorganization can move you across the country to make you quit.

News coverage treats each case as a one-day story. This page doesn't. It's a living tracker: every case, its current status, its next date, and the plain-English stakes, updated as rulings drop. Bookmark it.

The Tracker

Case Court What It Decides Status Next Date
USDA reorganization (AFGE/AFSCME + 29 others) N.D. Cal. Is a 23% workforce cut via forced relocations an illegal "RIF in disguise"? PENDING, no injunction yet Aug 21 PI hearing
NTEU v. IRS/Treasury/HHS (1
)		 D.D.C. Can agencies sit on 15,000+ disability telework accommodation requests? PENDING, early stage None scheduled
AFGE v. FLRA (1
)		 D. Mass. Who controls union elections: career Regional Directors or political appointees? EMPLOYEES WON, stay motion pending Stay ruling awaited
Jackler v. DOJ (26-1575, en banc) Fed. Cir. Are career adjudicators "inferior officers" removable at will, outside MSPB protection? BRIEFING Opening brief was due Jul 14 (no extensions); gov't response ~45 days; argument ~fall
AFGE/NFFE v. DoD (1
)		 D. Md. Was the April 9 mass termination of DoD union contracts unlawful under the APA? PI motion filed Jul 22 (Judge Gallagher) Briefing/hearing schedule pending
DHS/Interior probationary appeal Fed. Cir. Were mass probationary terminations really RIFs that MSPB must review? Appeal brief filed Jul 7 (~2,000 employees) Gov't response due Sep 25
Trump v. Slaughter Supreme Court Can presidents fire independent-agency heads at will? DECIDED Jun 29: yes (6-3) Fallout ongoing
Schedule P/C challenges (NTEU; AFGE; GAP + NARFE) Multiple Does reclassifying ~8,000 career positions as at-will violate the Civil Service Reform Act? PENDING, no merits ruling None confirmed
Mullady v. OMB (8
)		 D. Md. Were 142 career employees' RIFs politically motivated and their MSPB remedies constitutionally inadequate? PI hearing HELD Jul 20 (Judge Gallagher, Baltimore); ruling pending Jul 31 joint status report; class cert motion due Sep 21; PI ruling could drop any day

Case by Case: What's Actually at Stake

USDA reorganization: the "RIF in disguise" test case

Unions and 29 other plaintiffs (cities, counties, nonprofits) filed a supplemental complaint on July 1 in an existing Northern District of California case, armed with USDA's own internal documents showing the agency expects a "significant number" of employees to refuse relocation and is counting on those refusals to hit its 23% reduction target.

The legal question: can an agency achieve a reduction in force through geographic reassignment, without the notice, retention-register, and severance protections that RIF law requires? The August 21 preliminary-injunction hearing is the first real test. If the injunction is denied, the September 30 involuntary separations proceed on schedule. Our USDA lawsuit explainer and relocation decision guide cover the employee decisions in detail, and if separation reaches you, the Severance Pay Calculator shows what an involuntary exit pays.

Filed June 29 against the IRS, Treasury, and HHS, this case argues that leaving disability and medical telework accommodation requests unprocessed, more than 6,500 at Treasury and 9,000 at HHS, is itself unlawful. No hearing is scheduled yet. Settlement talks have been reported, so this one could resolve quietly; if terms emerge, they'd set the template for accommodation backlogs government-wide.

AFGE v. FLRA: the one employees have already won

Chief Judge Casper vacated the FLRA's union-election rule on June 29, restoring career Regional Directors' authority over election petitions and certifications. The FLRA's stay and reconsideration motions, filed July 6, are the open thread. Full breakdown, including what happens to petitions filed while the vacated rule was live, in our FLRA ruling guide.

Jackler v. DOJ: the sleeper with the biggest blast radius

Two fired immigration judges challenged their removals; the MSPB upheld the firings in March on the theory that immigration judges are "inferior officers" the president can remove at will under Article II. The Federal Circuit took the case en banc on June 17, a rare full-court review. The appellants' opening brief came due July 14 under a no-extensions order; the government's response follows within 45 days, with argument expected in the fall.

Why it matters beyond immigration judges: if Article II removal power overrides civil-service adverse-action protections for one category of career adjudicator, the same logic reaches administrative judges and potentially far wider. This is the case that could redraw who gets an MSPB appeal at all. The real trigger moment is the ruling, likely months away; we'll update this row when argument is scheduled.

AFGE/NFFE v. DoD: the contract-termination fight

Twenty AFGE locals and three NFFE locals sued DoD in Maryland on July 2 over Secretary Hegseth's April 9 memo terminating hundreds of collective bargaining agreements. The theory is the same one that won the FLRA case: an unexplained policy U-turn violates the Administrative Procedure Act. On July 22 the unions filed a preliminary-injunction motion asking the court to restore the terminated contracts while the case proceeds; the case sits with Judge Stephanie Gallagher, the same judge hearing Mullady v. OMB, and a briefing schedule is pending. A granted injunction here would be the first order restoring canceled federal CBAs government-wide. Background and what still protects DoD civilians contract-or-no-contract: our lawsuit brief and the survival guide.

DHS/Interior probationary appeal: were mass firings really RIFs?

Roughly 2,000 fired probationary employees at DHS and Interior, represented by Gupta Wessler, filed their opening brief at the Federal Circuit on July 7. The argument: when an agency terminates probationers en masse for budget reasons rather than individual performance, that is a reduction in force — and RIFs come with MSPB review rights that probationary "performance" terminations do not. The government's response is due September 25, which puts a ruling in late 2026 at the earliest. What it means for you: if the Federal Circuit agrees, mass probationary terminations across government would retroactively carry appeal rights, and the "probationers have no recourse" assumption that shaped the 2025-2026 cuts would be gone.

Trump v. Slaughter: the decided case that shadows everything

On June 29 the Supreme Court overruled Humphrey's Executor (1935) by a 6-3 vote, holding that presidents may remove heads of independent agencies without cause (the Federal Reserve was expressly carved out in a companion case). No federal employee's rights changed that day. But the referees changed: the MSPB, FLRA, and OSC, the bodies that adjudicate everything else on this page, now operate under at-will removal. Expect downstream litigation as agencies test the ruling's edges.

Schedule P/C: three suits, no ruling yet

At least three separate challenges (NTEU, AFGE, and Government Accountability Project with NARFE) target the June 3 executive order placing roughly 8,000 positions into Schedule Policy/Career, stripping their adverse-action protections. No court has reached the merits. Until one does, reclassified employees' practical situation is what it is; our Schedule P/C coverage tracks the employee-level decisions.

Mullady v. OMB: the broadest political-RIF test

One hundred forty-two former career employees from HHS, OMB, OPM, FDA, CDC, ACF, and DOGE sued in February 2026, arguing their reductions in force were politically motivated, built on inaccurate personnel records, and left them with an MSPB appeal process too hollowed out to count as due process. The claims run through the Fifth Amendment, the APA, and the Privacy Act, and the plaintiffs want reinstatement plus damages. Seven agency defendants survived the motion to dismiss. The preliminary-injunction hearing is set for July 20 in the District of Maryland; the ruling that follows it is the event to watch. A joint status report is due July 31 and the class-certification motion September 21. If the court finds the MSPB route constitutionally inadequate, every RIF'd career employee gains a potential path to district court instead.

How to Read This as an Employee

Three principles keep the doom-scrolling in check:

Nothing on this page has changed your rights yet. RIF procedures, severance eligibility, and MSPB appeals all operate under existing law while cases are pending. Decisions you make now (signing forms, accepting relocations, taking buyouts) matter more than any pending ruling.

Watch hearing dates, not filing dates. Lawsuits get filed weekly; rulings change things. The two dates worth calendar entries are July 14 (Jackler brief) and August 21 (USDA injunction hearing).

The structural cases compound. Slaughter weakens the boards; Jackler tests whether board protection applies at all; the Schedule P/C suits test how many jobs sit outside it. Track them together, which is the point of this page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which lawsuit matters most for ordinary federal employees?

Jackler v. DOJ has the broadest reach. If the Federal Circuit's en banc ruling holds that career adjudicators are "inferior officers" removable at will under Article II, the logic could strip MSPB appeal rights from wide swaths of the civil service, far beyond the two immigration judges who brought the case.

When is the next big date on the calendar?

July 31, 2026: the Mullady v. OMB joint status report, with the preliminary-injunction ruling from the July 20 hearing expected any day. Then August 21, 2026, the preliminary-injunction hearing on the USDA reorganization in the Northern District of California.

Did federal employees win or lose the FLRA election case?

Won, for now. A judge vacated the rule that gave political appointees control of union elections on June 29, 2026, restoring career Regional Directors' authority. But the FLRA filed stay and reconsideration motions on July 6 that are still pending, so the win is not final.

What did Trump v. Slaughter change?

The Supreme Court's June 29, 2026 decision overruled Humphrey's Executor, letting presidents remove leaders of independent agencies at will. It doesn't directly change any employee's rights, but it weakens the structural independence of the MSPB, FLRA, and OSC, the bodies that enforce those rights, and it shapes every other case on this tracker.

How often is this tracker updated?

Whenever a tracked case produces a ruling, a filing, or a new scheduled date. Check the changelog at the bottom for the latest revision. If a case you're watching is missing, it either has no scheduled 2026 activity or hasn't produced a substantive filing yet.

Changelog: 2026-07-19: Added Mullady v. OMB (8

, D. Md.) as the eighth tracked case; PI hearing July 20; updated next-date FAQ. 2026-07-14: Jackler opening-brief deadline passed (no-extensions order; government response due within 45 days). 2026-07-12: Tracker launched with seven matters.

Sources: GovExec, Federal News Network, AFGE filings, Federal Circuit docket 26-1575, Rise Up Federal Workers Legal Defense Network litigation tracker. Case numbers: 1

(D. Mass.), 1
(D.D.C.), 1
(D. Md.), 8
(D. Md.). Mullady sourcing: Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse case 47843.