Judge Orders that Fired Commissioners Be Allowed to Return to CPSC

The three fired CPSC commissioners can return to their jobs under a permanent injunction issued June 13 by Judge Matthew Maddox in Maryland U.S. district court. His order (bit.ly/3Tlzxhs) specified that they cannot be denied access to their offices, phones, computers, email accounts, and physical/electronic files; that they cannot be treated as if fired; and that they and their staffs must be given pay due since their May 8 terminations.

Maddox's ruling (bit.ly/4jTbm4F) focused on CPSC being a multi-member commission. That fact is relevant to the Department of Justice's argument (PSL, 6/9/25) that a 2020 Supreme Court case effectively overrode a 1935 Supreme Court case. The more recent ruling – Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – upheld presidential power to remove the head of the CFPB.

But CFPB was created with a single leader, not a panel, stressed Maddox. He pointed out that in Seila, the Supreme Court explicitly acknowledged the difference in saying that the 1935 ruling – Humphrey's Executor v. United States – did not protect the CFPB leader. Humphrey's upheld the protections against a president firing members of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It is portrayed as applying to similarly-structured CPSC.

Maddox included this passage from Seila (shortened by PSL):

"Unlike the New Deal-era FTC upheld [in Humphrey's Executor], the CFPB is led by a single Director who cannot be described as a 'body of experts' and cannot be considered 'non-partisan' in the same sense as a group of officials drawn from both sides of the aisle…Moreover, while the staggered terms of the FTC Commissioners prevented complete turnovers in agency leadership and guaranteed that there would always be some Commissioners who had accrued significant expertise, the CFPB's single-Director structure and five-year term guarantee abrupt shifts in agency leadership and with it the loss of accumulated expertise."

Maddox agreed with arguments made for the fired CPSC commissioners (PSL, 6/6/25) about limited executive powers as opposed to "substantial." For example, CPSC cannot prosecute court cases on its own but only "by the consent and involvement of the Attorney General, who is accountable to, and subject to at-will removal by the President." The term substantial is used to argue that the firing prohibitions encroach on presidential power.

He also agreed with the similarities between CPSC and FTC to set rules (quasi-legislative powers) and enforce them (quasi-judicial powers). His conclusion included:

"In sum, the CPSC closely resembles the 1935 FTC in both structure and function, and therefore qualifies for the Humphrey's Executor exception. The restriction against Plaintiffs' removal…does not offend the President's Article II removal power because the CPSC is a traditional 'multimember bod[y]' with 'quasi-judicial' or 'quasi-legislative' functions.'"

Meanwhile, in a related and ongoing case involving the National Labor Relations Board and Merit System Protection Board (PSL, 6/2/25), the Supreme Court stayed similar reinstatements at those agencies over worry of disruptions due to repetition of firings and re-hirings as the case progresses. Maddox asserted that is not a concern with his ruling because he has issued a permanent injunction. His reasoning for a permanent injunction included:

"The Court finds that the wrongful removal of a presidentially appointed Commissioner of an independent federal agency presents an 'extraordinary' situation involving interference with the performance of official duties and, therefore, is suited for mandamus relief…Each Plaintiff, having been duly appointed to serve as a CPSC Commissioner and not lawfully removed from that position, 'has a clear and indisputable right to' to their office, and Defendants have a 'clear' and 'official' duty to provide each Plaintiff access to the resources necessary and available for each Plaintiff to perform their official duties…If equitable relief in the form of a permanent injunction is unavailable, then there would be 'no other adequate means to attain the relief' to which each Plaintiff is entitled…And, in these circumstances, issuance of a writ of mandamus would be right and just."

A writ of mandamus is an order compelling a government official or lower court to do something, in this case allowing and facilitating the commissioners' returns to their jobs.