Arizona’s high court has declined to hear the latest effort of five child welfare workers suing to be compensated or rehired. 

The former Child Protective Services employees were fired in 2013 for allowing nearly 3,000 child neglect and abuse cases to go uninvestigated. They appealed their case in 2016, but lost.

This week, the Arizona Supreme Court refused to overturn the appellate court’s ruling.

The courts’ decision was not based on whether the five employees were chiefly at fault for labeling case files “Not Investigated” – as their attorney claimed they were instructed. Instead, their case was rejected because Arizona is an “at will” state and unless they were under a contract, the court pointed out, they have no recourse.

The employees’ attorney did not dispute the point, but said his clients’ were all “scapegoats” and the appellate judges should have decided it was wrong for the state to fire people who were doing their job as instructed.