A physicians group achieved a significant triumph over the Trump administration on Wednesday when a judge declared the “rushed and bulk” removal of webpages from public health websites as “unlawful.”

In early February, Doctors for America lodged an 18-page lawsuit regarding the removal of “a broad range of health-related data and other information utilized daily by health professionals for diagnosing and treating patients, and by researchers for advancing public health.”

Days later, Senior U.S. District Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, issued a temporary restraining order directing the government to restore a litany of webpages with phrases that fell afoul of President Donald Trump”s executive order attacking so-called “gender ideology.”

Now, acting on motions for summary judgment, the court has concluded the merits portion of the case with a finding almost entirely in the plaintiffs’ favor. In a 46-page memorandum opinion and accompanying order, Bates vacates memos effectuating Trump’s order, directs the government to restore a forthcoming list of webpages, and to file status reports detailing compliance.

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In a characteristically acerbic opinion, the government-skeptical judge took the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to task for the hurried and “slapdash” manner in which the webpages were censored.

“This case involves government officials acting first and thinking later,” the opinion begins.

The court then briefly runs through the facts of the case and the procedural posture in which the plaintiffs sued – alleging the removals violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the federal statute governing the actions of administrative agencies. The court also notes the defense claimed no one was hurt by the removals – and that the agencies argued they removed the webpages lawfully.

The judge determined the plaintiffs made the better case.

“The problem here is not so much the underlying policy decision but rather compliance with the law in effectuating that decision,” the opinion goes on. “When the President issues an executive order, an agency’s exercise of discretion in implementing the order is cabined by the agency’s statutory obligations, including those imposed by the APA. Because the agencies failed to adhere to those obligations here, the Court will vacate their directives.”

In ruling for the plaintiffs, Bates finds the OPM memo was a final agency action issued without statutory authority.

From the opinion, at length:

Here, the context shows that the memo is a directive. After stating that agencies “should take prompt actions” to implement the E.O., the memo then both “[s]pecif[ies]” eleven tasks for agencies to complete and requires a report back “to OPM on all steps taken to implement this guidance” within 48 hours — a bolded and underlined deadline. And within the bulleted list of directives and deadlines, never once does typically permissive language appear again. Given the specificity of the tasks, emphasized deadlines, and reporting requirements, it is evident that OPM expected agencies to comply with the memo, not simply to take it as “guidance.” And it is no surprise, then, that HHS interpreted the OPM Memo as a command, rather than a suggestion.

The HHS memo fared no better, the court said, despite the government’s argument that the plaintiffs had launched a so-called “programmatic attack” on the general activities of HHS. This kind of defense essentially argues that a plaintiff is broadly attacking how the government evolves as it carries out its business.

“But the Court disagrees that the plaintiffs launch a programmatic attack,” the opinion goes on. “The plaintiffs challenge HHS leadership’s adoption of an unlawful directive to HHS staff, as shown by the January 31 memorandum. This is unlike the kinds of programmatic attacks that courts have found unreviewable.”

The heart of Bates’ APA analysis is a discussion about whether the memos were arbitrary and capricious, a term of art which applies to government actions that go too far and eschew formal processes.

The judge easily found they were.

“If the agency failed to examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory response — such as by failing to consider an important 37 aspect of the problem or relevant reliance interests — then the action was not ‘the product of reasoned decisionmaking’ and must be set aside,” the opinion continues. “Considering the scant administrative record, the answer here is clear: neither the OPM Memo nor the HHS Guidance was the product of reasoned decisionmaking.”

Here, the court again focuses on the speed with which the agencies moved to comply with Trump’s diktat about gender ideology.

Again, the opinion, at length:

Even when “implement[ing] an executive order,” agencies are bound by their APA obligations to “analyz[e] the impacts, costs, and benefits of alternative policy options.” But here, OPM and the HHS defendants analyzed almost nothing. Begin with the timelines. The OPM Memo required agencies’ compliance within two days. And the HHS Guidance— which relied on the OPM Memo—gave staff even less time. Indeed, HHS issued its overarching action memo to staff on the same day as the first OPM deadline. Why? The OPM Memo and administrative record are silent.

The court also criticizes the government for deleting entire webpages when it could have “remove[d] an offending word or statement without rescinding the entire webpage.”

Finally, the court directs substantial umbrage at the government for the basic nature of the policy — in a section putatively based on the plaintiffs raising a reliance argument. Bates finds the government’s actions particularly egregious due to the “decades” the defendants “provided a wide swath of health-related resources to the public free of charge, in part through the webpages at issue.”