On July 23, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 vote, granted the Trump Administration’s request to stay a permanent injunction that had ordered the reinstatement of three Democratic CPSC Commissioners: Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric, and Richard Trumka Jr. (the “Commissioners”), after the Administration fired them from the independent agency without cause.
Background: Lower Court Rulings and Appeals
The Supreme Court’s decision followed an order entered on June 13, 2025, by Judge Matthew J. Maddox of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, granting summary judgment in favor of the Commissioners. Judge Maddox ruled that their firing was unlawful under the Consumer Product Safety Act (the “Act”) and ordered their reinstatement, noting concerns about the potential disruption if the Commissioners were reinstated and removed while the litigation was ongoing.
On June 16, 2025, the Trump Administration appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the following day, requested an emergency stay for the reinstatement order. The Fourth Circuit unanimously denied the motion. In a concurring opinion, Judge James Andrew Wynn explained that terminating the Commissioners without a finding of any neglect or malfeasance was “plainly in conflict with the textual language of the statutory removal protections” and rendered the terminations legally ineffective under the Act.
For more information on the lower court’s ruling, see our earlier post: Court Orders Reinstatement of CPSC Commissioners After Unlawful Firing by the Trump Administration and Trump Administration Seeks Supreme Court Stay of Democratic CPSC Commissioners’ Reinstatement After Losses in District Court and Fourth Circuit.
The Supreme Court’s Opinion
While the Supreme Court granted the application for a stay, the Court did not address the underlying merits of whether the Trump Administration’s firing of the Commissioners was lawful. Instead, the Court temporarily paused the lower court’s order requiring the Commissioners’ reinstatement while the appeal process continues in the Fourth Circuit. This decision was procedural, not substantive, and relied on the Court’s recent ruling in Trump v. Wilcox,
605 U.S. __ (2025). The majority explained “our judgment [is] that the Government faces greater risk of harm from an order allowing a removed officer to continue exercising the executive power than a wrongfully removed officer.” They concluded, “[t]he same is true on the facts presented here.”
In his concurrent opinion, Justice Kavanaugh wrote that he would have also granted certiorari before the Fourth Circuit completed its review. He explained that when an emergency application could lead the Supreme Court to narrow or overrule a precedent, and there is at least a reasonable likelihood of that happening, the best approach is often to grant both a stay and grant certiorari before judgment. Kavanaugh cautioned that failing to do so “may leave the lower courts and affected parties with extended uncertainty and confusion about the status of the precedent in question.” In a strong dissent, Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, criticized the majority for rushing this decision through its emergency docket and relying on the recent, minimally explained ruling in Wilcox. She argued that “[b]y allowing the President to remove Commissioners for no reason other than their party affiliation, the majority has negated Congress’s choice of agency bipartisanship and independence,” undermining a structure the Supreme Court upheld for nearly a century in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602, 626 (1935). In her view, the majority is erasing Congress’s intent and steadily shifting power “piece by piece by piece, from one branch of Government to another.”
What’s Next: Ongoing Legal Uncertainty
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is a bipartisan, independent government agency tasked with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury and death associated with consumer products. Under the Consumer Product Safety Act, Commissioners can only be removed for “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”[1]
Although the Trump Administration is currently permitted to remove Commissioners without cause, the legality of these firings is still under review by the Fourth Circuit and could ultimately return to the Supreme Court for a full decision in the next term. The stakes extend far beyond the CPSC. This case could overturn Humphrey’s Executor and set a precedent that affects the structure of independent agencies, which Congress has intentionally prevented from being subject to executive control. If the President’s power to remove the Commissioners without cause is upheld, it could fundamentally reshape how these agencies operate, making them more vulnerable to political interference and undermining the bipartisan checks Congress put in place.
[1] 15 U.S.C. § 2053(a)
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