A Navy reservist who was laid off from his job at Lockheed Martin after he returned from Iraq filed a federal lawsuit against the company on Tuesday, saying he was wrongly terminated because he left his job to serve his country.
Joseph “Max” Ernest was employed as a counterintelligence/counter-terrorism and law enforcement analyst for Lockheed Martin in Colorado Springs in 2004.
In March 2006, Ernest received orders to deploy to Baghdad for nine months and he notified the company.
When Ernest returned from Iraq, a human resources representative from Lockheed Martin told Ernest “that he was no longer desired and he was being laid off,” the suit says.
A spokesman for Lockheed Martin declined to comment on the merits of the lawsuit because it had not yet been reviewed.
Felisa Cardona, The Denver Post
