What happens to mass federal firings when the person behind them allegedly lacked authority?
A federal court allowed claims that DOGE's leader needed Senate confirmation before allegedly directing sweeping federal workforce actions to move forward.
In a decision issued on March 23, 2026, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the District of Columbia granted in part and denied in part a motion to dismiss in two consolidated cases challenging the authority of the Department of Government Efficiency. The ruling allows two legal claims to proceed while dismissing two others.
The cases were consolidated in March 2025. The first was brought by a coalition of states led by New Mexico, while the second was filed by four nonprofit organizations: the Japanese American Citizens League, OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates, the Sierra Club, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. The State Plaintiffs have since voluntarily dismissed their claims. The opinion addresses the motion to dismiss filed in the nonprofit case, in which the plaintiffs sued the U.S. DOGE Service, two individuals associated with DOGE, sixteen federal agencies, and the heads of those agencies.
At the center of the dispute is a January 20, 2025, Executive Order in which President Trump renamed the U.S. Digital Service as the United States DOGE Service and created a temporary organization within it tasked with advancing an 18-month efficiency agenda. The nonprofits alleged that DOGE quickly outgrew that mandate. Rather than simply modernizing government technology, DOGE allegedly directed agencies to cancel grants and loans, halt payments, fire employees en masse, slash workforces, and in some cases dismantle entire agencies – all without lawful authority to do so. DOGE also allegedly took credit for shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The plaintiffs alleged that the head of DOGE operated with virtually no oversight, answering only to the President, and that agency officials carried out DOGE's directives.
Judge Chutkan's ruling carved the case down to its core. She dismissed the Administrative Procedure Act claim, finding that the complaint swept too broadly by lumping together actions across sixteen agencies into one catch-all challenge. She also dismissed the separation of powers claim, finding under existing appellate precedent that it was rooted in alleged statutory violations rather than a standalone constitutional issue. The sixteen agency defendants were dropped from the case along with the APA claim.
On employment-specific claims, the court found that it lacked jurisdiction. The Civil Service Reform Act – the federal framework governing disputes over adverse personnel actions – sends those challenges to the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Federal Labor Relations Authority, not to the district courts. The court held that even though the nonprofit plaintiffs are not federal employees or unions, the statute's comprehensive structure was designed to keep these disputes within those specialized channels.
What survived, however, carries weight. The court found that the plaintiffs plausibly alleged that the head of DOGE qualifies as an officer of the United States who required Senate confirmation under the Constitution's Appointments Clause. Judge Chutkan pointed to the 18-month duration of the position, the fact that it was not tied to any single individual, and the scale of authority allegedly exercised – from directing mass terminations to shuttering agencies – as sufficient at the pleading stage to meet the constitutional threshold. She rejected the argument that DOGE's leader was merely an informal advisor, finding instead that the complaint described someone issuing orders that agency officials carried out.
The court also rejected what it characterized as an extraordinary argument from the defendants: that the Appointments Clause does not apply if the office was never formally created by Congress and the power was never formally granted. Judge Chutkan found that the implications of this reasoning were disquieting, as it would allow the executive branch to sidestep Senate confirmation simply by creating offices unilaterally and filling them without legislative involvement.
The ultra vires claim also survived. The court found that exercising vast government power without any statutory authorization amounts to the kind of extreme legal error that warrants judicial review.
The ruling also addressed Elon Musk's departure from government. The court held that his exit did not render the case moot, because the claims could continue against his successor and because policies initiated under his leadership allegedly continue to cause harm.
The case will now proceed on the Appointments Clause and ultra vires claims. The decision is not final – it is a ruling at the pleading stage, and further proceedings are expected. The court denied the plaintiffs' request for expedited discovery without prejudice, allowing them to refile given the narrowed scope of the litigation.
For HR professionals watching the federal workforce landscape, the case raises a pointed question: when an entity like DOGE directs agencies to carry out mass terminations and restructuring, does it matter whether the person at the top was ever lawfully authorized to give those orders? According to this court, it does.
