{"id":146954,"date":"2023-09-08T11:15:36","date_gmt":"2023-09-08T15:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=146954"},"modified":"2023-09-07T15:38:59","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T19:38:59","slug":"veteran-fired-by-iowa-air-national-guard-to-get-300000-settlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=146954","title":{"rendered":"Veteran, fired by Iowa Air National Guard, to get $300,000 settlement"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The settlement includes what the veteran, Tommy Marion Copeland, and his legal team will collectively receive. Copeland failed a physical test and was subsequently fired. In response, Copeland filed civil lawsuits claiming that he was discriminated against in the racial, age, and disability fronts. Copeland claimed that others were not fired after failing their tests. However, the Attorney General’s office argued that Copeland failed six times and that people in the same job position did not keep their jobs after failing four times.<\/p>\n

From the Des Moines Register:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

In his published opinion, Justice David May wrote that the law does not apply when an employee directly reports to the person who makes appointments within a public agency. In this case, May wrote, the veterans’ preference law applies to Copeland because he did not report directly to the Iowa National Guard’s adjutant general.<\/p>\n

May added that the finding conflicts with previous opinions from the Iowa Supreme Court, in which justices gave public officials broader authority to fire military veterans.<\/p>\n

“We conclude that (a) narrow reading is the better approach,” May wrote. “It is more faithful to the words of the statute. And it prevents the exception from effectively swallowing the veterans’ preference.”<\/p>\n

Prior to Monday’s settlement, the ruling remanded that case to district court for arguments on other issues.<\/p>\n

In a separate lawsuit, Copeland alleged that Iowa Air National Guard officials committed age, race and disability discrimination. He said officials knew about his knee replacement surgeries and asked him multiple times when he planned to retire. He added that white employees did not lose their jobs after failing physical tests, unlike him.<\/p>\n

He also said he suffered from heat stroke during a physical test in July 2020.<\/p>\n

In response, the Attorney General’s Office conceded that Copeland “became ill” during the run. But, they added, Copeland failed the test six times. While others didn’t get fired after failing the test, they said, “no other Air Base Security Officers have failed four (physical tests) and remained employed.”<\/p>\n

As part of Monday’s settlement, Copeland will receive about $159,000. The law firm of Gribble, Boles, Stewart & Witosky will get $141,000.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Des Moines Register provides additional information here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The settlement includes what the veteran, Tommy Marion Copeland, and his legal team will collectively receive. … Veteran, fired by Iowa Air National Guard, to get $300,000 settlement<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[463,226],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-national-guard","category-veterans-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146983,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146954\/revisions\/146983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}