The court’s majority, Kagan wrote, “may be raring” to invalidate for-cause removal requirements approved by Congress. But until it does, she wrote, a 1935 precedent on that issue should control. A federal district court ordered Slaughter’s reinstatement in July and an appeals court in Washington, DC, ultimately declined to overturn that ruling. The court’s liberal wing has complained that, following those decisions, the court has effectively already overturned Humphrey’s. His estate sought to recover his salary during the period after his firing and the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that his dismissal was improper.