An injunction barring mass layoffs of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) workers while related court matters proceed was upheld by an appeals court for the District of Columbia in a ruling issued Friday.
The panel of Washington, D.C., circuit judges ruled in connection with a revised reduction-in-force proposal submitted by bureau attorneys in early April, after a district court had issued a temporary ban last March preventing the CFPB from cutting 90% of its workforce.
Under the revised plans, the CFPB workforce would be cut by about two-thirds, from 1,174 employees in fiscal year 2026 to 556 next year.
The appeals court ruling issued Friday ultimately denied the CFPB’s request for a stay against the original injunction, remanding the case back to Judge Amy Berman Jackson to decide whether the revised workforce reduction proposal should modify or dissolve her temporary ban.
Jackson, a U.S. district judge for the District of Columbia, put the initial injunction in place to prevent CFPB Acting Director Russell Vought from effectively closing the agency down while a civil lawsuit contesting the mass termination plan — brought by a trade group representing CFPB workers and five other plaintiffs — unfolded.
But Vought and the bureau appealed Jackson’s ruling prohibiting immediate implementation of the mass layoffs, describing the move as beyond the district judge’s authority. A series of related maneuvers by Vought to defund the bureau while the civil lawsuit proceeded were also blocked in recent months.
The government’s request for an expedited district court decision was also denied by the panel of appeals court judges on Friday, who said that the district court “has moved expeditiously throughout this litigation,” leading them to assume “that the court would continue to do so on remand.”
Neither the CFPB nor the National Treasury Employees Union representing CFPB workers returned requests for comment by the time of publication.
Representing another setback for the Trump administration in its quest to shrink or eliminate the federal mortgage regulator altogether, the ruling leaves CFPB employees at their desks for the foreseeable future.
Earlier in June, President Donald Trump nominated Brian Johnson, who served as deputy director of the bureau during a portion of Trump’s first term, to become the full-time director when Vought’s acting role expires in August.
