Fired HHS employees allege terminations were based on ‘error-ridden' personnel records

Politico

3 days ago

Department of Health and Human Services personnel records used by DOGE to determine which employees would be fired as part of deep cuts to the agency were 'hopelessly error-ridden' and contained 'systemic inaccuracies,' according to a new class-action lawsuit.
The records reflected lower performance ratings than what employees had actually received and in some cases listed incorrect job locations and job descriptions, according to the lawsuit filed in Washington federal court Tuesday by seven terminated employees.
In previous statements, HHS has blamed the incorrect data on the agency's 'multiple, siloed HR division.' HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has acknowledged mistakes were made during the cuts and that some employees will have to be reinstated.
'It is, of course, little solace to these plaintiffs that they were fired because of 'siloed' recordkeeping,' lawyers Clayton Bailey and Jessica Samuels write in the lawsuit. 'Nor is it any comfort to know that many of them had been fired by 'mistake.' For these plaintiffs, HHS's intentional failure to maintain complete and accurate records before making life-changing employment decisions was a clear violation of the law.'
HHS declined to comment.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages for all HHS employees who were terminated on April 1 and whose reduction-in-force notice contained incorrect information. The exact number of terminated employees that would fall into that class isn't immediately clear, but the lawsuit estimates it to be most of the 10,000 employees subject to the April 1 RIF.
The lawsuit also claims that the HHS layoffs were driven by a 'deep-seated animus toward federal workers.'
'On March 31, 2025, a group of DOGE representatives visited an FDA office in Maryland,' Bailey and Samuels write, referring to the Department of Government Efficiency. 'That afternoon, while an FDA employee was heading to her car to leave for the day and alone in the parking garage, a car pulled up near her with its window open. A young man in business attire shouted at her from the car: 'This is DOGE and this is your Last Supper!' He laughed and drove off. The employee was shaken, but didn't understand the incident at the time. She received her RIF notice the next morning.'
'Politics aside, this is no way to treat civil servants who have dedicated their careers to public health and safety,' Samuels said in a press release. 'These employees are entitled to some basic level of respect and fairness, just like anyone else.'
HHS has paused action on the RIFs amid separate litigation over President Donald Trump's ability to order widespread cuts at multiple government agencies.
POLITICO previously detailed some of the errors HHS employees saw in their RIF notices, mistakes that could affect terminated employees' ability to be appropriately compensated for their years of federal service and to access stopgap health care.
Multiple employees' performance ratings were incorrect on their paperwork, two FDA employees granted anonymity to discuss the situation told POLITICO in April. Those scores affect the number of additional 'credit years' federal workers can receive toward their service and, in turn, the amount of severance pay to which they're entitled. One of the people said several staffers had lower numbers listed on their RIF notices than they actually earned.
In addition, the human resources contact provided to help affected workers obtain health coverage through COBRA no longer worked at the agency, that person said.