Lawsuit: Doge, HHS used "hopelessly error-ridden" data to fire 10k workers

Firing spree allegedly based on incorrect employee scores and other basic errors.

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) teamed up with DOGE to fire 10,000 employees while relying on "hopelessly error-ridden" personnel records, a class-action complaint filed yesterday alleged. The lawsuit said the HHS terminated thousands of workers on April 1, shortly after sharing the flawed personnel records with the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

"These agencies knew that the records were hopelessly error-ridden, and that the records should have been used, if at all, with great caution," said the lawsuit filed in US District Court for the District of Columbia. "Instead of taking steps to verify the contents of the records and correct the systemic inaccuracies, the agencies promptly used them to fire 10,000 employees."

The case was filed by a law firm founded by former Justice Department attorneys on behalf of seven named plaintiffs and all others who were laid off as part of the April 1 Reduction in Force (RIF). It alleges that the government violated the Privacy Act, which requires agencies to verify the accuracy of information used as the basis for adverse actions against employees.

"Because the decision-makers at these agencies were working with such flawed data, they barely knew who they were cutting," lawyer Clayton Bailey said in a press release. Lawyer Jessica Merry Samuels said, "politics aside, this is no way to treat civil servants who have dedicated their careers to public health and safety." Bailey and Samuels launched their firm, the Civil Service Law Center, to represent fired federal workers in lawsuits against the Trump administration.

The lawsuit said the plaintiffs come from "a range of offices and positions at HHS, from the Chief Information Officer of FDA, to an engineer working on mining safety at NIOSH [National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health], to an IT specialist with 34 years of experience at CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. They all suffered the same experience: losing their jobs as a result of flawed personnel records."

The lawsuit points to public statements from HHS to support its contention that leaders knew the firings were based on false data. "Almost immediately after the April 1 cuts, a spokesperson for HHS reported to multiple media outlets that 'to the extent there are errors, it is because the data collected by HHS's multiple, siloed HR divisions is inaccurate,'" the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit quotes Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as saying, "Personnel that should not have been cut, were cut. We're reinstating them. And that was always the plan. Part of the—at DOGE, we talked about this from the beginning, is we're going to do 80 percent cuts, but 20 percent of those are going to have to be reinstated, because we'll make mistakes." With this remark to reporters, Kennedy "acknowledged that the Department knew they were making mistakes in carrying out the RIF," the lawsuit said. But not all incorrectly fired employees were reinstated, according to the complaint.

Lawsuit: “Many obvious red flags” ignored

The defendants include HHS, Kennedy Jr., DOGE, Elon Musk, OMB, OMB Director Russell Vought, OPM, the FDA, and the CDC. The lawsuit said Musk was "deeply involved in deciding where HHS would cut," and that "the animus of [defendants] towards federal workers led them to ignore the many obvious red flags about the accuracy of the personnel data they were relying on, in order to terminate more people more quickly."

The "unreliable records hopelessly marred the image of various HHS offices and subcomponents that were being considered by Defendants for significant cuts, making entire offices more likely to be targeted by DOGE and others for elimination," the lawsuit said. The inaccurate data in many cases "prevented Defendants from understanding even the basic composition of HHS offices."

Additionally, "these inaccurate and incomplete records fed directly into agency retention registers—the formal standings that rank employees against each other—making it less likely that Plaintiffs caught up in the RIF would be retained or offered favorable reassignment," the suit alleged.

When plaintiff Catherine Jackson received her termination notice, she "was surprised to see recent performance ratings that were flatly incorrect," the lawsuit said. Jackson worked in the Office of Child Care "supporting the state of Alaska and American Indian tribes in their implementation of programs that help low-income families afford childcare."

Jackson's notice "reflected a recent performance rating of 3, but she had never received a score lower than 4. Defendants had clearly used an inaccurate personnel record in determining to include her in the RIF. She has not received an offer of reinstatement or reassignment. Ms. Jackson is 68 and struggling to find a new career to support her through to retirement; her retirement annuity would have vested in a few months."

“Defendants did not seem to know where she worked”

Plaintiff Carrie Greene's termination notice said she had received a 3 in a recent performance evaluation, even though "she had never received a score lower than 5" and in fact "had received incentive awards based on her outstanding performance every year," the lawsuit said.

Greene, who worked in the Administration for Children and Families, seemed to be "included in the RIF because her personnel records incorrectly listed her duty station as the San Francisco, CA regional office, which was closed as part of the April 1 cuts," the lawsuit said. But her team was based in Washington, DC.

Melissa Adams, a former Office of Grants Management employee, received a termination notice containing incorrect performance ratings along with "an even more fundamental issue: Defendants did not seem to know where she worked," the lawsuit said. The defendants seemed to think that Adams was part of a Boston regional office, but she actually worked for a DC-based office and "worked remotely in Massachusetts pursuant to a longstanding reasonable accommodation," the lawsuit said.

"Ms. Adams is a single mother searching for a new job to support her and her family," the lawsuit said.

Plaintiff Vid Desai, former CIO of the FDA, received a termination notice that said "he had received a 3 in each of his most recent performance evaluations," the lawsuit said. "But this was inaccurate: his previous three performance reviews should all have rounded up to 5. As a direct result, he lost eight years of retention credit, which should have been used to determine whether he would be retained, terminated, or offered alternative assignments."

Because of the mistakes, decision-makers apparently saw "an office led by an under-performing executive when that was not accurate," the lawsuit said. "As a result, on information and belief, Defendants chose to cut Mr. Desai and much of his team while keeping other IT functions." Desai's notice also allegedly contained other inaccurate and incomplete data.

"Mr. Desai's reputation as a high-level IT professional has been especially damaged by Defendants' actions," the lawsuit said. "Defendants' disparaging comments about IT modernization and efficiency, combined with Mr. Desai's inclusion in the RIF, give the impression that he was responsible for those problems, despite his and his team's efforts over years to improve the IT environment."

Fired workers invited to join lawsuit

The Civil Service Law Center is inviting other fired employees to join the lawsuit. "Although the exact number and identity of class members is unknown to the Plaintiffs at this time and can only be ascertained through appropriate discovery, public reporting and interviews with potential class members suggest that many—and possibly most—of the RIF notices issued by the agency contained personnel-related errors," the lawsuit said.

Other named plaintiffs include Shawn Chenault, a former product manager and marketing specialist in the FDA's Office of Digital Transformation; Brendan Demich, a former engineer in the Pittsburgh Mining Research Division of NIOSH; and Fonda Kornegay, a former IT systems analyst in the CDC. All three allegedly received termination notices containing inaccurate performance scores.

"The Pittsburgh Mining Research Division also appeared to decision-makers to have lower-performing employees than was accurate. After collecting and reviewing this erroneous data, Defendants chose to cut the Pittsburgh Mining Research Division while ultimately keeping some other portions of NIOSH open," the lawsuit said.

The CDC's Office of Informatics, Governance, and Assurance, where Kornegay worked, "also appeared to decision-makers to have lower-performing employees than was accurate" and was eliminated, the lawsuit said. The FDA's Office of Digital Transformation wasn't eliminated entirely, but much of the office was cut based on similarly false records, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit asks for financial damages and a judgment "that Defendants' use of inaccurate and incomplete data in connection with the April 1 RIF was unlawful." We contacted HHS about the lawsuit today and will update this article if we get a response.