Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, PROCEDURE—W.D. Wash.: Motion to dismiss, dissolve preliminary injunction blocking termination of AFGE CBA denied, (Jul 30, 2026)

By Todd Harrison, J.D.

“The preliminary injunction… remains in full force unless and until it is modified, dissolved, or stayed.”

Rejecting the federal government’s motion to dismiss and dissolve a preliminary injunction that prohibits it from terminating a collective bargaining agreement between AFGE and the TSA, a federal district court in Washington determined that the operative supplemental complaint was not moot as it involved a live dispute. The government argued that a September 2025 determination rescinded and replaced a February 2025 determination that was the subject of the original preliminary injunction, but because the supplemental complaint included allegations pertaining to the September determination, the plaintiffs corrected the claimed subject-matter “defect” and the government’s mootness argument as to the original complaint failed. Further, having shown no significant change in law or fact pertaining to the plaintiffs’ claims, the government failed to meet its burden (American Federation of Government Employees v. Mullin, No. 2:25-cv-00451-JNW (W.D. Wash. July 28, 2026)).

This case concerned the government’s decision to terminate the 2024 CBA between the AFGE and the TSA. On February 27, 2025, the government issued a determination rescinding previous agency actions expanding collective bargaining rights to Transportation Security Officers (TSOs), terminated the 2024 CBA, stripped AFGE of its elected status as the exclusive representative of the TSOs, cancelled the grievance and arbitration processes provided for by the 2024 CBA, and discontinued the ability for TSOs to pay voluntary dues from their paychecks.

Preliminary injunction. In challenging the February determination, the plaintiffs claimed it constituted retaliation in violation of the First Amendment, violated the due process guarantees provided by the Fifth Amendment, and violated the APA as an arbitrary and capricious agency action that was also contrary to law.

On June 2, 2025, the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction was granted. The injunction itself contained three prongs. The first and third addressed the February determination by name, while the second swept more broadly, enjoining the government from “[d]enying Plaintiffs, their members, and all bargaining unit TSOs any and all rights and/or working conditions guaranteed in the 2024 CBA.” The government did not move for reconsideration or appeal, and the case was later reassigned to this court.

September determination. A second determination was issued in September 2025, which purported to rescind “[a]ll prior Determinations,” declared that the 2024 CBA was “terminated,” directed TSA to “immediately cancel all voluntary dues deductions through payroll” and to “cancel all grievances and arbitrations,” and provided that TSA screening officers “shall not have the right to elect an exclusive representative for the purpose of collective bargaining or for any other purpose.”

On December 12, 2025, the government filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and for dissolution of the preliminary injunction, arguing that the September determination mooted the operative complaint and that the preliminary injunction should be dissolved along with it.

While that motion was pending, the court clarified that the preliminary injunction prohibited the government from implementing the September determination because the second prong “prohibits the denial of CBA rights regardless of the vehicle used to accomplish that denial.” In doing so, the court did not then rule on the government’s arguments against the “jurisdictional, legal, and factual basis for the injunction,” finding that those arguments would be resolved through the government’s motion to dismiss.

In addition, the court granted the plaintiffs leave to supplement their complaint to address the September determination, which they did. Here, the court addressed whether the claims should be dismissed as moot and whether the injunction should be dissolved.

Mootness. As to mootness, the government argued that the September determination rescinded and replaced the February determination, which formed the basis of the original complaint. According to the government, this rescission and replacement stripped the court of jurisdiction because “[i]t is well established that the supersession of an agency order moots any challenges to the original order.” However, the court noted that this rule was not as cut-and-dried as the government would have liked to believe, noting that the government’s own lead authority recognizes that a challenge stays live when “the relevant challenged condition had been reiterated” in the agency’s replacement decision, and the September determination reiterates every operative command of the February determination.

Regardless, the court found that it need not weigh into that particular thicket because the plaintiffs had since filed a supplemental complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(d) to include allegations pertaining to the September determination. Thus, the plaintiffs had corrected the claimed subject-matter “defect” through supplementation.

Agreeing with the endpoint, the government, on reply, clarified that it did not contend that the case was moot, only that the original complaint is. This narrowed the dispute to pleading mechanics, and the court’s order granting leave to supplement resolved that dispute. Because the September determination remains in effect, the court found that the operative supplemental complaint was not moot as it involved a live dispute embedded in an actual controversy concerning the plaintiffs’ legal rights. Accordingly, the motion to dismiss was denied.

Dissolution. Turning to the government’s argument that the preliminary injunction should be dissolved as invalid in the face of the September determination and recent Ninth Circuit precedent, the court explained that a two-step inquiry is used to decide whether an injunction should be modified or dissolved. First, the party seeking dissolution or modification must show a significant change in facts or law. If that burden is met, the court must address whether such a change warrants dissolution of the injunction, an inquiry that is guided by the same criteria used to govern the issuance of a preliminary injunction.

Here, the government contended there was a “significant change” in both fact and law. First, it argued that the September determination included new information undermining the injunction’s analysis of the plaintiffs’ arbitrary and capricious claim under the APA. Second, it argued that the plaintiffs were now unlikely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment retaliation claim given the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in AFGE v. Trump, 148 F.4th 648 (9th Cir. 2025).

Assuming, without deciding, that that the September determination and AFGE v. Trump worked significant changes in fact and law, the court explained that the government was still required to show that those changes warranted dissolution under the preliminary injunction criteria. The court found they were unable to do so because the changes they identified did not touch the two findings on which the injunction independently rests.

Independent bases. According to the preliminary injunction, the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their contrary-to-law claim under the APA and their Fifth Amendment Due Process claims, each of which formed an independent basis for the injunction.

Applying All. for the Wild Rockies v. Cottrell, 632 F.3d 1127 (9th Cir. 2011), as its governing framework, the order found the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on each claim, and grounded the irreparable harm in the loss of the CBA rather than in any theory unique to the claims the court here had assumed away. Nor did the government identify anything in the September determination disturbing the order’s balance-of-hardships or public-interest findings, criteria on which they also bear the burden, explained the court.

An attempt to relitigate. The government’s remaining arguments attacked the original findings on the two unaffected claims. While they made some mention of the AFGE v. Trump case, its arguments did not center on any substantial change of law or fact, but rather sought to relitigate the issues underlying the original preliminary injunction order, observed the court, finding that the government could not mount such a challenge in this posture. Thus, having shown no significant change in law or fact pertaining to those two claims, the government failed to meet its burden to show that the preliminary injunction should be dissolved or modified. Accordingly, the motion to dismiss or dissolve the preliminary injunction was denied, and it “remains in full force unless and until it is modified, dissolved, or stayed,” concluded the court.

The case is No. 2:25-cv-00451-JNW.

Judge: Whitehead, J.

Attorneys: Abigail V. Carter (Bredhoff & Kaiser) for American Federation of Government Employees AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees AFL-CIO TSA Local 1121, Communications Workers of America AFL-CIO, and Association of Flight Attendants-CWA AFL-CIO. Brian C. Kipnis, U.S. Attorney's Office, for Markwayne Mullin, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and Ha Nguyen McNeill.

Companies: American Federation of Government Employees AFL-CIO; American Federation of Government Employees AFL-CIO TSA Local 1121; Communications Workers of America AFL-CIO; Association of Flight Attendants-CWA AFL-CIO

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