“in an amount that the court considers proper”
Multiple people responded to that asking the same question and there is no response to the ultimate authority of the “judge” of “the court” to consider it “proper” to set the amount to $0.
A federal judge on Wednesday allowed the Trump administration to move forward with its buyout offer that encourages federal workers to voluntarily resign, rejecting an attempt by labor unions to pause a program meant to shrink the government workforce.
U.S. District Judge George O’Toole in Massachusetts lifted a previous temporary order that blocked the buyout while he considered arguments by unions challenging it.
The judge, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, said in a five-page opinion that the unions lacked proper legal standing to challenge the buyout program because they were not directly impacted by it. He also said aggrieved employees could first bring any claims through an administrative review process.
Patience. It’s still early days. These rulings will probably be reversed. And, if not, it’s time to pull an Andrew Jackson.
The real question is “nationwide injunctions”. SCOTUS has got to take that up. A federal district court’s writ runs only in its district. But the issue probably won’t get up to SCOTUS for review until there is a split among the circuits on the question.
A number of legal commentators, including Democrats, Republicans, Attorney General William Barr, and Justice Thomas, have called for limiting district courts’ use of nationwide injunctions. From a pragmatic perspective, they argue that allowing a single district court judge to effectively decide federal policy leads to dysfunction as agencies must switch policies at the drop of a hat.
Another complaint is that, given the number of district courts, plaintiffs can forum shop to find the most sympathetic judge and obtain a nationwide ruling almost at will. It is no coincidence, these critics assert, that nationwide injunctions against the Bush administration came largely from California, those against the Obama administration came from Texas, and those against the Trump administration largely from courts in California, Hawaii, and Washington.
From a constitutional perspective, opponents of nationwide injunctions argue the Judiciary Act of 1789 could not have granted the power to impose a nationwide injunction because the Constitution only granted our judiciary powers available to English courts of the era. Those courts did not have the power to grant injunctions against the king and only in limited circumstances issued injunctions applying to more than just the specific plaintiff in question.
The body of Justice Thomas’s concurrence focuses on the remedy that the plaintiffs sought and obtained from the district court: a nationwide injunction. Justice Thomas first emphasizes the negative impact of nationwide injunctions, which first emerged in the 1960s, arguing that they prevent “legal questions from percolating through the federal courts”; promote forum shopping; and make “every case a national emergency for the courts and for the Executive Branch.” He then questioned the district court’s specific authority to issue such injunctions, concluding that they “appear to be inconsistent with longstanding limits on equitable relief and the power of Article III courts” because:
- No statute expressly grants the district courts the power to issue universal injunctions; and
- The court’s inherent constitutional authority is limited by the traditional rules of equity at the time of the founding (Guaranty Trust Co. v. York), which did not provide for universal injunctions.
This is all well and good but the rule of law is dead. The very existence of these district court injunctions is evidence thereof. This is characteristic of late-stage empire. The GAE is definitely in the final stages.
District Court injunctions are actually issued by human beings, District Court judges. If such a judge were aware that if the nation-wide injunction he issued is later overturned on appeal, then the judge will promptly be taken to the gallows constructed outside his court rooms and hung until dead … judge-shopping would become much, much more difficult!
Bottom line is we deserve a better class of judge.
Since I am a kind, gentle soul, I would be happy to put the offending judge in a pillory and have the local kids throw rotten vegetables at him or her. That should do the trick.
Please read AnnCoulter’s latest column, “If it Please the Court, Who the Hell Asked You?” One of the first topics covered in law school (in my day, as we geezers say) was the concept of personal jurisdiction. The J word has 2 meanings: it can refer to a geographical area within which an coutr’swrit runs, and it can mean power over a person, to adjudicate the rights of persons properly before it. And, UNLESS a person, including an entity, has subjected itself to the court’s power, or has been dragged into the court by valid service of process upon it, the court cannot order that entity to do anything, nor can it adjudicate that entity’s liability or rights.
So yeah. Nationwide injunctions have gotta go. But I think SCOTUS is the only tribunal which could clear up the issue.
(I 
Ann! So happy she’s back on the Trump Train. She has also pointed out, in connection with the “Nobody voted for Elon Musk!” garbage, that nobody votes for federal judges, either. )
Logical, and well argued. However, it would still be much more effective to go with a version of what England’s Royal Navy (back in the days when they had a navy) did in its prime – shoot an occasional Admiral, pour encourage les autres.
Yeah, Kulak says our country began to die when Prez Madison pardoned General Hull, the man who let himself be fooled into surrendering Fort Detroit. In contrast to the British who shot Admiral Byng because he didn’t pursue the French ships after a battle which left his own barely seaworthy.
edit:
“The man who controls 100% of the executive branch is supposed to listen to a dinky little district court judge …”
Not just listen – the elected President is supposed to obey the dinky little unelected judge. To echo Stalin, how many divisions does the judge have?