He says he was promised his job back after deployment - then given three reasons for his firing
A concrete company demoted and fired a National Guard member over his military service, a new federal lawsuit alleges.
The complaint, filed July 28, 2026, in Nashville federal court, names Smyrna Ready Mix Concrete as the defendant. The plaintiff, a former general manager, alleges his standing at the company began to slip once his employer learned he would deploy.
He joined the company in 2018 as a truck driver and rose to general manager over eight concrete plants by December 2021, according to the filing. He says he had positive reviews and no discipline on his record. In August 2023, the complaint states, he told the chief executive he would deploy the following year. The suit says the CEO told him he could work closer to home beforehand and that he would return to his general manager job afterward.
That did not happen, the complaint alleges. Before deployment, the filing says, he was moved down to dispatch and then to driving trucks - roughly four levels below general manager. After he reminded a supervisor that he still held the general manager title, the complaint says the CEO told him to either drive a truck or take unpaid leave, and to not "pull the 'GM' card."
He deployed in September 2024 and returned in August 2025. Here the case turns on a point every HR team should recognize. USERRA, the federal law that protects service members' jobs, generally requires an employer to restore a returning worker to the position he would have reached had he never left - often called the escalator principle. The complaint alleges the company did the opposite, cycling him through plant manager and then dispatcher, and giving a newly open general manager role to another employee.
The filing attributes several anti-military comments to the CEO during a November 2025 meeting. Among them, according to the complaint: "If you weren't military, I would've fired you already." The employee also alleges he was told his "future is dispatch."
The suit says he was diagnosed with PTSD, major depressive disorder, insomnia, migraines and tinnitus. It alleges the company would not let him attend therapy in person, and that on one occasion a plant manager struck the back of his chair and accused him of sleeping while he was having a migraine.
A division president fired him on February 13, 2026, the complaint states. The reasons kept shifting, according to the filing: first, claims about attendance and long lunches; then a separation notice that read "Position eliminated"; then a statement to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission pointing to "the culmination of numerous performance issues." The suit contends each explanation was a pretext for discrimination and retaliation.
For HR leaders, the takeaway is procedural. Reasons that change over time, no contemporaneous record of discipline, and a returning service member who never lands back at his prior level are the exact pattern USERRA plaintiffs build claims around.
The complaint brings claims under USERRA and two Tennessee statutes, the Tennessee Disabilities Act and the Tennessee Human Rights Act. A related disability charge is pending with the EEOC.
The allegations have not been tested in court, and no judge has ruled on the claims.
