WASHINGTON–A federal judge has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to reinstate fired employees, stop any reductions in force, preserve data and ensure employees can perform their statutorily mandated functions.

The court ruling comes as an executive order signed by President Trump has sought to all but shut down the agency, where employees have largely been sent home and the CFPB’s name has been removed from its headquarters building.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson granted a motion for a preliminary injunction in the lawsuit brought by the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) and other plaintiffs against the CFPB and CFPB Acting Director Russell Vought. 

In a 112-page opinion, the judge agreed that the defendants were trying to eliminate the agency and that the plaintiffs would be likely to prevail in showing that the law does not permit them to do so, the NCLC said in a statement.

NCLC is a plaintiff in the case, along with National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Virginia Poverty Law Center, and CFPB Employee Association. The NCLC noted terminally ill Pastor Eva Steege was also a plaintiff but passed away two weeks prior to the judge’s decision. She has been replaced by her husband Martin Theodore (“Ted”) Steege. The plaintiffs are represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group, Gupta Wessler LLP, and NTEU.

CFPB Can ‘Get Back to Work’

“Today’s decision clears the way for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to get back to the work Congress created it to do –  protecting people from predatory and unfair financial practices,”  Richard Dubois, executive director of the National Consumer Law Center, said in a statement. “I am grateful to the legal team for fighting to reverse the illegal shuttering of the CFPB and to the court for its unequivocal action to stop this brazen attempt to undermine the essential work of the nation’s consumer watchdog.”

Added Deepak Gupta, founding principal of Gupta Wessler LLP, in a statement, “When we filed this lawsuit, the Trump Administration had paralyzed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s work and was within hours of firing nearly its entire staff. Today’s victory blocks the unprecedented plan to dismantle the CFPB–an agency that Congress created to protect Americans’ financial security. This ruling upholds the Constitution’s separation of powers and preserves the Bureau’s vital work. We’re heartened by the decision and look forward to continuing to press our case in court.” 

What The Judge Said

In her decision, Jackson wrote: “The defendants were fully engaged in a hurried effort to dismantle and disable the agency entirely – firing all probationary and term-limited employees without cause, cutting off funding, terminating contracts, closing all of the offices, and implementing a reduction in force (‘RIF’) that would cover everyone else. These actions were taken in complete disregard for the decision Congress made 15 years ago, which was spurred by the devastating financial crisis of 2008 and embodied in the United States Code, that the agency must exist and that it must perform specific functions to protect the borrowing public.”