Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, USERRA, VETERANS—N.D. Ill.: Agronomy employee, fired day before third military leave, advances USERRA claims, (May 29, 2026)

By Jason Albright, J.D.

He also alleged that his supervisor manufactured a performance issue as a pretext for his demotion.

A former Commercial Product Evaluation Manager for Syngenta Seeds, LLC, demoted just before his first military leave with the Ohio National Guard, and fired the day before his third, stated claims of failure to reemploy and denial of the rights and benefits of employment under USERRA, a federal district court found. The employer argued that the position to which it demoted him was the escalator position after his first and second leaves because his position as manager had been eliminated prior to his first leave, but if his initial demotion was discriminatory, he was likely entitled to reinstatement as a manager after his first leave and therefore after the subsequent two. The court also declined the employer’s invitation to create an “end-run” around USERRA’s protections by permitting employers to fire service members in the period between giving notice of an impending military leave and the beginning of the leave itself (Gregg v. Syngenta Seeds, LLC, No. 25 C 12313 (N.D. Ill. May 27, 2026)).

Agronomy manager. Syngenta Seeds, according to the court, hired the plaintiff as a Commercial Product Evaluation Manager for its Agronomy Division in August 2020. Over the next two years, the company gave him several awards and recognized his positive performance.

National Guard enlistment. In July 2022, however, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, Ohio National Guard. He informed Syngenta that he was ordered into active-duty military service from September 2022 to February 2023.

Demotion. Syngenta initially told him it would temporarily reassign his duties, but before his military leave began, it permanently reassigned his duties to another member of the Agronomy Division and transferred him to the role of Analyst in the Insights & Analytics group. The reservist alleged that this reassignment was a demotion to a position with fewer responsibilities.

Return after first leave. Returning to work in the Analyst position after this first military leave, he expressed his concerns to Syngenta that he had been demoted as a result of it. He met with HR and contacted the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). He further alleged that his supervisor manufactured a performance issue as a pretext for his demotion.

Second military leave. After notifying Syngenta, he took leave for a second period of active-duty military service during the month of January 2024. In February 2024, he informed Syngenta of upcoming active-duty periods in the spring of 2024 and then for 12 to 18 months beginning in the fall of 2024.

Supervisor’s email. His supervisor responded by email: "I don't care and support you guys, but this does go against what I've been advised for both you and Ivan from HR. His leave has thrown me off, and now this. Is this all standard stuff.?"

A third... Then, after he notified Syngenta of the precise date of what would have been his third military leave in May 2024, Syngenta told him that his employment would be terminated at the end of April, the day before his military service began.

Reemployment refused. When his military service ended in May 2024, he sought reemployment with Syngenta. Syngenta refused.

Lawsuit. He then sued Syngenta in October 2025, alleging that the employer took adverse employment actions against him—demotion and termination—that were motivated by his military leave and his complaints to DOL. He argued that Syngenta discriminated and retaliated against him in violation of 38 U.S.C. § 4311(a)-(b), failed to reemploy him in violation of 38 U.S.C. §§ 4312—13, and denied him the rights and benefits of employment in violation of 38 U.S.C. § 4316. He further alleged that Syngenta acted willfully, entitling him to liquidated damages under 38 U.S.C. § 4323. He sought a declaratory judgment that Syngenta violated USERRA, economic and non-economic damages, and equitable remedies of reinstatement and recoupment of wages and benefits.

Present motion. In February 2026, Syngenta moved to dismiss his claims under Sections 4312—13 (failure to reemploy) and 4316 (denial of the rights and benefits of employment). He then sought a stay under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, 50 U.S.C. § 3932, due to his ongoing deployment to Europe. The court granted the motion to stay the case generally but did not stay ruling on the motion to dismiss, to which he responded.

Escalator position. The court first observed that the issue of the escalator position after the reservist’s first and second leaves is the “core of these claims.” In arguing that he was reinstated to the proper escalator position after each of his military leaves, Syngenta contended that the reservist’s Analyst position was the escalator position after his first and second leaves because the Manager position had been eliminated prior to his first leave.

This argument, the court noted, disregarded the reservist’s contention that his reassignment from Manager to Analyst was itself a violation of USERRA, and if he were to prevail on that contention, “it would be incongruous to nonetheless take the alleged demotion to Analyst as a fait accompli that locks in Analyst as the escalator position.” If the initial transfer to Analyst was discriminatory, the court concluded, the reservist “likely was entitled to reinstatement in the Manager position after his first leave, and therefore after his second and third leaves as well, barring other intervening events that may have changed the escalator position.” The question of the appropriate escalator position was thus “better suited for determination at summary judgment or trial.”

Not an employee under USERRA? The court also declined the Syngenta’s invitation to create an “end-run” around USERRA’s protections by permitting employers to fire service members in the period between giving notice of an impending military leave and the beginning of the leave itself. Syngenta had argued that the reservist could not maintain a USERRA claim regarding his termination because he was terminated prior to taking leave and therefore was not an employee under USERRA at the relevant time.

Acknowledging that this “appears to be a matter of first impression,” the court was unpersuaded. Congress broadly defined the terms "employee" and "employer" in USERRA, it noted, and Sections 4312—13 do not state that a person must remain employed to bring a claim against an employer or that, to be actionable, an adverse employment action must occur during or after a military leave. “Reading the USERRA this way would incentivize employers to end-run its protections by terminating service members in the period between notice and the beginning of a leave,” the court observed.

The case is No. 25 C 12313.

Judge: Kennelly, M.

Attorneys: Matthew Crotty (Riverside NW Law Group) for Gary Gregg. George Richard Wood (Littler Mendelson) for Syngenta Seeds, LLC.

Companies: Syngenta Seeds, LLC

Cases: USERRAVeterans Discharge Retaliation IllinoisNews