Can States Fire Employees Who Leave for Military Duty? US Supreme Court May Decide – By Tara Copp (McClatchy Washington Bureau) / Dec 2 2020
WASHINGTON — Should a federal law that protects National Guard members and reservists from being fired from their private sector jobs while they are deployed also apply to state government jobs? Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court hinted it might weigh in on the issue.
The U.S. Supreme Court last Tuesday requested additional information from the Texas attorney general’s office on why the state should not be held accountable to the 1994 Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), which prohibits employers from retaliating against or firing National Guard members and reservists who are pulled from their full-time jobs to go on active duty.
The case that sparked the court’s interest, Le Roy Torres v. The Texas Department of Public Safety, involves a former Texas state trooper who came back from a yearlong deployment to Balad, Iraq, too sick to perform his former patrol duties. Torres spent a year breathing in toxic ash from the massive open air pit at Balad that may have also sickened thousands of other Iraq war veterans.
In an email to McClatchy, Torres said the state did not provide an alternative desk job that could accommodate his deteriorating health. Instead, he said, he was forced to resign in 2012. Torres now relies on supplemental oxygen and is largely confined to his home in Robstown, Texas.
