Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, REMEDIES, DAMAGES—D. Md.: Unlawfully removed CPSC commissioners entitled to declaratory and injunctive relief, (Jun 17, 2025)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

“Humphrey’s Executor remains good law and is binding on this Court, and, for reasons explained below, the Court finds that it applies to the CPSC.”

President Trump’s purported removal of the three Biden-appointed Consumer Product Safety Commission members from their positions without any finding of “neglect of duty or malfeasance” was unlawful, a federal court in Maryland ruled, explaining that the CPSC closely resembles the 1935 FTC in both structure and function, and that it therefore qualifies for the Humphrey’s Executor exception to the President’s Article II removal power. Granting the Commissioners’ motion for summary judgment, the court also found they were entitled to a declaratory judgment that their removals were ultra vires and to injunctive relief enjoining the President’s subordinates from obstructing the performance of their duties (Boyle v. Trump, No. MJM-25-1628 (D. Md. Jun. 13, 2025)).

Established by Congress in 1972 as an independent agency, the CPSC consists of five Commissioners who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate to serve staggered, seven-year terms. No more than three can be affiliated with the same political party and, pursuant to the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA), they can be removed prior to the expiration of their terms only for “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”

Purported removals. All three Commissioners here were nominated by President Biden, confirmed by the Senate, and were never accused of neglect of duty or malfeasance in office. Nonetheless, on May 8, two of them received an email stating that “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position on the Consumer Product Safety Commission is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.” The following day, the third Commissioner received a phone call informing him that President Trump had terminated him from his role as a CPSC Commissioner.

Lawsuit. Arguing that the government acted ultra vires and in violation of the CPSA by removing them as Commissioners without cause and taking action to effectuate the purported terminations, they sued, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. After initially declining to issue temporary or preliminary injunctive relief, the court ordered expedited briefing and the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment.

Humphrey’s Executor. While Article II of the Constitution provides the President with the power to remove executive officials, the court, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor, noted that the power is not absolute. In that case, the court observed, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a statutory provision preventing the President from removing members of the Federal Trade Commission except for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” The Court noted that the Commission was “an administrative body created by Congress to carry into effect legislative policies embodied in the statute in accordance with the legislative standard therein prescribed, and to perform other specified duties as a legislative or as a judicial aid.”

Seila Law. While the court here observed that Humphrey’s Executor remains good law, it pointed out that the Supreme Court, in its 2020 Seila L. LLC v. Consumer Fin. Prot. Bureau decision, declined to extend the Humphrey’s Executor exception to justify statutory tenure protection for the sole director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In declining to exempt the CFPB Director from the President’s general removal power, the Court emphasized the concentration of the CFPB’s “significant governmental power in the hands of a single individual accountable to no one,” that had “no basis in history and no place in our constitutional structure.”

Binding authority. Turning to whether the Commissioners’ statutory protections in the CPSA infringes on the President’s Article II removal power, the court here pointed out that Humphrey’s Executor was not only binding on it, it applied to the CPSC. Like the FTC, said the court, the CPSC is “a multimember body of experts, balanced along partisan lines” and appointed to serve “staggered, seven-year terms;” they have expertise in areas related to consumer products and protection of the public from risks to safety; and not more than three of them can be affiliated with the same political party.

Also like the FTC, the CPSC’s structure sharply contrasts with the “anomalous” single-Director organization of the CFPB found unconstitutional in Seila Law. Further, the CPSC performs functions similar or identical to those of the FTC which Humphrey’s Executor described as “quasi legislative and quasi judicial.”

Substantial executive power. For its part, the government argued that the Humphrey’s Executor exception does not apply to the CPSC because its powers, including its authority to enforce laws within its jurisdiction through enforcement actions in federal court, exceed those of the 1935 FTC and constitute “substantial executive power.” Although the court found it unclear how much executive power an agency must wield before it loses protection under the Humphrey’s exception, its reading of Supreme Court precedent suggested “that the exercise of powers described as ‘executive’ in nature, by itself, is not dispositive of whether an agency is disqualified from the Humphrey’s Executor exception.”

In accordance with that precedent, the court declined the government’s “invitation to engage in categorizing the CPSC’s varied set of functions and powers as executive or non-executive.” Pointing to Seila Law, the court noted that an agency’s structure must also be considered. Here, the court found the CPSC’s five-member, staggered-terms would likely provide multiple opportunities for Presidents to appoint a new Commissioner and in turn shape the Commission’s leadership and influence its activities.

The court also found it important that, unlike the CFPB at issue in Seila Law, the CPSC’s structure and powers “are well-established in the history and tradition of the federal government. Agreeing with the Fifth Circuit’s holding, in Consumers’ Research v. CPSC, that the CPSC’s statutory removal restriction was supported by “historical pedigree,” the court pointed out that Seila Law drew a clear contrast between “a traditional independent agency headed by a multimember board or commission,” like the CPSC and the CFPB’s “almost wholly unprecedented” single-Director leadership structure.

The Seila Court also recognized that statutory removal restrictions were in place in “some two-dozen multimember independent agencies,” without giving any indication of a constitutional defect among these provisions.” This historical precedent for statutory removal restrictions among traditional multimember independent agencies, said the court here, gives strong indication the CPSA’s removal restrictions do not violate Article II. Accordingly, the court found the President’s purported removal of the Commissioners absent neglect of duty or malfeasance in office was unlawful.

Declaratory relief. Granting the Commissioners’ request for declaratory judgment that “President Donald J. Trump’s purported termination of Plaintiffs from their roles as Commissioners of the [CPSC] is ultra vires, contrary to law, and without legal effect,” the court found such relief to be appropriate here and thus it stated that if would grant a declaration consistent with its ruling that their removal without cause was unlawful.

Injunctive relief. The court also found appropriate injunctive relief enjoining the President’s subordinates from obstructing the performance of the plaintiffs’ duties as CPSC Commissioners and their access to the resources necessary for such performance. The Commissioners suffered irreparable harm in having been deprived of participation in the affairs of the CPSC and access to the facilities and resources available and necessary to perform their statutory duties over the past weeks and those harms were certain to continue in the absence of injunctive relief. Nor could their injuries be redressed adequately through money damages.

Further, said the court, a permanent injunction reinstating the Commissioners to their positions was favored by the balance of relevant hardships and did not run counter to the public interest. “Depriving this five-member Commission of three of its sitting members threatens severe impairment of its ability to fulfill its statutory mandates and advance the public’s interest in safe consumer products,” the court stated, finding this “hardship and threat to public safety significantly outweighs any hardship Defendants might suffer from Plaintiffs’ participation on the CPSC.”

The case is No. MJM-25-1628.

Judge: Maddox, M.

Attorneys: Allison M. Zieve (Public Citizen Litigation Group) for Mary Boyle. Abigail Stout, U.S. Department of Justice, for Donald J. Trump.

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