Joseph “Max” Ernest, a Navy reservist who was laid off from his job at Lockheed Martin after serving in Iraq, filed a federal lawsuit claiming his termination violated the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) and Colorado law. Ernest was working as a counterintelligence/counter-terrorism and law enforcement analyst for Lockheed Martin when in March 2006 he was put on active duty for 11 months, including a nine-month deployment to Baghdad. In 2010, an arbitrator awarded Ernest almost $250,000 in back pay, prejudgment interest, attorney’s fees, expert witness fees, and other costs and expenses.