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OGDEN -- The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit after a Layton man claimed he lost his job over his military service.
Jose Ortega of Layton was working as a network administrator at Synapse Data and Telecom in Ogden. He claims he enlisted in the Utah National Guard last April and told his boss he had to report for basic training.
He says the boss, Matthew Mossbarger, tried to get him to back out of his enlistment and then fired him because he wouldn't.
But Mossbarger says it isn't that clear cut.
"The government, instead of protecting people, is actually acting in this overly heavy-handed way in a scenario where there's a lot of mitigating circumstances," he said.
He says he was trying to grow his fledgling business. Ortega was the only other employee. Mossbarger says when word surfaced that Ortega was leaving, investors backed out and the company ultimately folded.
Mossbarger says he was only trying to get Ortega to delay his enlistment. He says he consulted an attorney, who told him the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, which the lawsuit accuses him of violating, may not apply if it caused undue hardship on a company. The Justice Department says that was a misinterpretation of the law.
Ortega filed a complaint with the Labor Department's Employment and Training Service (VETS). VETS investigated the matter, determined that Ortega's claim had merit, and upon completion of conciliation efforts, referred the matter to the Justice Department.
"The Department of Justice is committed to vigorously enforcing federal laws that protect the employment rights of our servicemembers," said Loretta King, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. "That commitment is evidenced by cases such as this where a servicemember's employment was terminated simply because he had committed to military service and would be reporting for training."
The Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department has given a high priority to the enforcement of servicemembers' rights under USERRA. This is the tenth USERRA lawsuit filed this year by the Civil Rights Division on behalf of servicemembers.
E-mail: aadams@ksl.com
