The resignation offer to federal employees known as a “Fork in the Road” has been postponed again by a federal judge.

In a federal courtroom in Boston today, U.S. District Judge George O’Toole pushed back the deadline for the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program, “until further order of the Court”. 

The hearing came almost two weeks after The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent an email to more than 2 million civilian employees of the federal government with the subject line “Fork in the Road.” Initially, it gave federal employees just nine days to make their decision.

The OPM email, bearing resemblance to one that Elon Musk sent to Twitter employees after he purchased the company in 2022, gave government workers a choice: They could stay or leave, but if they stayed, their jobs would not be guaranteed. Moreover, those who stayed would face “significant” reforms, including layoffs, a return to office, and an expectation that they be “loyal.”

If they leave, OPM said, the deal was that they could stay on the government’s payroll until the end of September.

Last week, O’Toole ordered the government to extend the February 6th deadline for employees to accept the offer, in order for him to hear arguments in the case. The deadline had already been extended to 11:59 pm tonight, Monday.

As of Friday, about 65,000 federal employees or roughly 3% of the federal workforce, accepted the resignation, according to the Trump administration.

Democracy Forward, a legal group, filed a lawsuit February 4th on behalf of labor unions representing more than 800,000 civil servants. It states that the Trump administration’s resignation offer is unlawful, as well as “arbitrary and capricious in numerous respects.”

The labor unions assert that OPM has exceeded its authority in promising pay and benefits through the end of September, given the fact that funding for most federal agencies expires on March 14th. A law known as the Antideficiency Act prohibits federal agencies from obligating any spending that has yet to be approved by Congress.

The unions further argue that the offer fails to consider potential negative consequences to the government’s ability to function and that it sets an arbitrarily short deadline, among other things.

In court today, the unions’ attorney Elena Goldstein described the resignation offer as “explosive” and something OPM seemed to be making up as they went along.

However, Department of Justice attorney Eric Hamilton called the offer a “humane off ramp” for federal employees that wish to avoid the uncertainty that lies ahead for the federal workforce.

Hamilton also reiterated a point made in the government’s brief filed last week, that Congressional approval for the deferred resignation program is unnecessary, “because employees would remain in duty status and entitled to their regular pay and benefits” until September 30th. The brief noted that no additional compensation had been offered.

Moreover, the government argued that the resignation offer is not a “final agency action” and therefore not subject to judicial review.

“It is a matter of pure internal governmental administration,” the government’s attorneys stated in their brief.

They rejected the claim that the “Fork” offer is coercive, and appeared to be trying to shift legal responsibility away from OPM and toward employees who accept the offer.

“That email announcing the voluntary resignation program does not determine any rights or obligations, and no legal consequences flow from the program itself. Rather, any legal consequences would flow from a federal employee’s choice in accepting the voluntary resignation offer,” the government’s attorneys wrote. “The voluntary resignation program ‘does not require anyone to do anything.'”

The government had argued that pausing the program further would inject more uncertainty for federal workers and disrupt a “critical priority” of the Trump administration to overhaul the federal workforce.

Democratic attorneys general from 20 states and the District of Columbia filed a brief Sunday in support of the unions’ lawsuit, asserting that the resignation offer “would have a devastating impact on states’ ability to respond to natural disasters, support veterans, and deliver crucial services to millions of Americans.”

“Without the work of thousands of federal employees, communities across the country will suffer,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a statement.

On Monday, O’Toole ordered that brief, along with others filed, deleted from the docket. He wrote, “While there may be no positive rule forbidding it, in my judgment a trial court generally should not receive nor consider volunteered submissions by non-parties except as may be specifically authorized by statute or other authority.”

The federal government is the biggest employer in the U.S., with 80% of civilian employees working at military bases and in government offices outside the Washington D.C. region.

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