Press Release: New Lawsuit Against HHS and DOGE Challenges Mass Layoffs Based on Bad Data
Class action brought by newly launched Civil Service Law Center LLP seeks damages on behalf of thousands of HHS employees who were terminated due to widespread errors in personnel records
June 3, 2025 – Federal workers who were swept into mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services brought a class action lawsuit against the agency and others on Tuesday.
The employees allege that the April 1, 2025, layoffs—directed in part by DOGE, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)—were based on haphazard data collection and inaccurate personnel records pulled from HHS’s antiquated HR systems. According to the complaint in Jackson v. Kennedy, the Defendant agencies used, among other things, incorrect performance ratings, incorrect office assignments, and incorrect position descriptions. Despite knowing the records were inaccurate, the employees say, the government rushed to fire 10,000 people anyway.
The lawsuit was brought by Clayton L. Bailey and Jessica Merry Samuels of Civil Service Law Center LLP, a new firm they launched recently to litigate on behalf of federal workers.
“Because the decisionmakers at these agencies were working with such flawed data, they barely knew who they were cutting,” said Bailey. “These employees suffered the consequences.”
The lawsuit is based on the Privacy Act, a 1974 law that requires the government to use accurate, relevant, timely, and complete records when making adverse determinations against individuals.
The complaint alleges that the rush to fire people with bad data was motivated by political aims and hostility toward federal workers. Russell Vought, a defendant in the lawsuit and Director of OMB, infamously stated before assuming office that he wanted federal workers to be “traumatically affected” by trying to do their jobs. The lawsuit further alleges that the evening before the layoffs, a DOGE staffer shouted at a soon-to-be-fired employee in the parking garage of her office: “This is DOGE and this is your Last Supper!”
“Politics aside, this is no way to treat civil servants who have dedicated their careers to public health and safety,” said Samuels. “These employees are entitled to some basic level of respect and fairness, just like anyone else.”
The lawsuit is brought on behalf of a class of HHS employees by representatives from offices across the agency, including employees from FDA, CDC, NIOSH, and the Administration for Children and Families. All allege similar errors that infected their termination decisions. Because these data issue appear to have been so widespread, the employees estimate that the proposed class will number in the thousands.
The employees are seeking monetary damages for harms they have suffered as a result of the error-ridden layoffs, and a declaratory judgment that the layoffs were carried out unlawfully. In particular, the employees say they have been harmed by the abrupt and unexpected layoffs, the need to quickly find new employment, and the stress and anxiety they have endured over the past two months.
A federal judge in California recently granted a preliminary injunction pausing the layoffs, though that ruling does not address the claims or damages at issue in this case. The Trump Administration has appealed the California ruling to the Supreme Court.
