A federal appeals court has issued a decision that amounts to a reminder to agency management about protections for employees who temporarily leave the workforce for military duty.
It said that when an employee challenges a personnel decision by citing the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, a court will look to: the proximity of time between the military service and the employment action; inconsistencies between the employer’s proffered reasons for the action and other actions of the employer; the employer’s expressed hostility towards members protected by USERRA together with a knowledge of the employee’s military activity; and disparate treatment of covered employees compared with other employees with similar records or offenses.
In the case at issue, it said that all four factors fell in favor of the employee, who was denied a request for an extension of military duty in order to complete work on a project for the Army that his own agency was aware of; it initially even allowed him to use its own information in the project.
The court found that the events were close in time, the agency’s proffered reasons for its decision were not well supported, that a supervisor had “expressed hostility” toward the military assignment, and that the agency had not taken a similar action regarding another similarly situated employee.
