The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia earlier this year ordered the government to halt the administration's ban on transgender troops while a series of legal challenges unfold. | Getty Trump administration seeks to delay order to accept transgender recruits

The Trump administration has asked a federal court for an emergency stay to delay a court order to begin opening the military to transgender recruits by Jan. 1.

The move is the latest development in a complicated legal battle over President Donald Trump's order earlier this year that transgender personnel be banned from the ranks — a policy the Pentagon is currently studying how best to carry out.


The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia earlier this year ordered the government to halt the administration's ban onthan those in the first action.  The plaintiff in Walden filed a malpractice action against the lawyers who had represented her in a divorce proceeding.  She alleged, inter alia, that she was not advised of a certain workers' compensation award to her husband at the time she agreed to the property settlement.  Id. at 507.  The plaintiff, however, had filed a prior action in West Virginia to set aside the divorce decree;  and the court in the case had dismissed her action, finding that she knew of the existence of the workers' compensation award and had knowingly waived her rights to the award.  Id. In holding the plaintiff collaterally estopped by the prior judgment, the court in Walden reasoned, "A litigant cannot