Disability Discrimination Lawyer for Macomb County
You got hurt, or diagnosed, and the job in Macomb County kept going without you. The plant told you to come back with no restrictions.
The hospital said it had no light duty. The points kept adding up on absences your doctor documented. If you asked for help before the discipline started, and you can prove it, that may be disability discrimination under the ADA and Michigan’s PWDCRA, and the 15-minute case evaluation to find out is free. Termination cases are on contingency. The deadline to worry about first is not the three-year limitations period. It is the PWDCRA requirement that your request be in writing within 182 days of when you knew you needed the accommodation; miss it and the state claim weakens badly. The statewide ADA accommodation and retaliation page has the general law. This page is about Macomb County.
How disability discrimination cases look in Macomb County
Macomb County’s workforce builds vehicles, tanks, and axles, staffs two large hospitals, and fills a supplier corridor along Van Dyke and Gratiot. Physical work means injuries, and injuries mean accommodation requests.
“Full duty or don’t come back” at Warren Truck, Sterling Heights Assembly, and Sterling Axle
A worker at Stellantis Warren Truck or the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant, or at Ford’s Sterling Axle, returns from a shoulder repair with a permanent overhead-reach restriction. Plant medical takes the note, and the answer is that the plant does not return anyone with permanent restrictions. That is a “100% healed” policy by another name, and courts have treated it as a failure to make the individual assessment the ADA requires. Evidence: the return-to-work note, the medical department’s written response, the list of jobs on your shift that do not involve overhead reach, and the coworker with a similar restriction who was placed.
Attendance points and disability-related absences on the line and in the trades
Points-based attendance runs most Macomb County plants and many suppliers. An employee with Crohn’s disease, migraines, or a seizure disorder has flare-ups, some covered by intermittent FMLA and some not. When FMLA is exhausted or was never certified, the employer points every absence and terminates at the threshold, never asking whether a modified attendance standard or a schedule change would work. Evidence: the attendance printout with each absence matched to a medical record, the FMLA certification, the accommodation request, and the attendance policy’s own exception language.
Engineers and veterans at the GM Tech Center, General Dynamics, and TACOM
The GM Global Technical Center in Warren, General Dynamics Land Systems in Sterling Heights, and the Detroit Arsenal employ a salaried workforce with a large share of veterans. Service-connected hearing loss, PTSD, and orthopedic injuries lead to requests for a quieter workspace, remote days, or a modified travel schedule. The private employers must accommodate under the ADA; the Army must under the Rehabilitation Act, through a different process described below. Evidence: the request, the VA disability documentation if you chose to share it, and the employer’s written reasons.
Nights, weekends, and lifting at Henry Ford Macomb and McLaren Macomb
Nurses and techs at Henry Ford Macomb in Clinton Township and McLaren Macomb in Mount Clemens ask for a day-shift move after a sleep-disorder or cardiac diagnosis, or a lifting limit after a back injury. The answer is often that shift assignments are by seniority or that every unit requires full patient handling. Seniority systems matter, but they do not end the analysis, and “every unit” is rarely true across a whole hospital. Evidence: the staffing grids, the postings, and the transitional-duty policy that applies to on-the-job injuries.
The law that applies
The ADA applies to Macomb County private employers with 15 or more employees. It requires an EEOC charge within 300 days, filed at the Detroit Field Office, and it caps compensatory and punitive damages at $50K to $300K by employer size. Michigan’s Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act, MCL 37.1101, applies to employers with one or more employees, which brings in the small machine shops and supplier operations along Van Dyke that the ADA misses. It carries a three-year limitations period, no agency filing, and no damages cap.
The state statute has a condition most plant workers never hear about. MCL 37.1210(18) provides that an employer’s duty to accommodate under the PWDCRA is triggered only by written notice, given within 182 days after you know or reasonably should know you need an accommodation. Handing plant medical a doctor’s note is not clearly a request. Telling your supervisor you cannot lift is not written notice. An email or letter to HR that says “I have a medical condition, here is my limitation, here is what I need” is. Send it now, and keep a copy.
The other doctrines that come up in Macomb County: a “no restrictions” return policy is not an individual assessment; leave beyond FMLA can be a reasonable accommodation if it has an end date; the employer may ask for documentation of the limitation, not your whole chart; reassignment to a vacant position is required under the ADA when nothing in your own job can be changed; being “regarded as” disabled is protected even when you are not; and retaliation for asking is unlawful regardless of whether you were entitled to what you asked for. If the condition came from a work injury and you filed for compensation, MCL 418.301(13) separately prohibits firing you for that.
| Claim | Who’s covered | Deadline | Damages |
|---|---|---|---|
| ADA (private and state/local employers) | 15+ employees | EEOC charge within 300 days | Back pay, front pay, capped compensatory and punitive ($50K–$300K), fees |
| PWDCRA, MCL 37.1101 | 1+ employees, including small suppliers | Written notice within 182 days; suit within 3 years | Back pay, front pay, uncapped emotional distress, fees |
| Rehabilitation Act (federal employees at TACOM / Detroit Arsenal) | Federal agencies | Contact agency EEO counselor within 45 days | Back pay, compensatory damages capped at $300K, fees; no punitive |
| FMLA (own serious health condition) | 50+ within 75 miles; 12 months, 1,250 hours | 2 years, 3 if willful | Lost wages, liquidated damages, fees |
Every deadline is collected on Michigan employment claim deadlines.
Where your Macomb County disability discrimination case gets filed
PWDCRA and comp-retaliation claims file in the Macomb County Circuit Court, the 16th Circuit, at 40 N. Main Street in Mount Clemens. ADA claims file in the Eastern District of Michigan, with the main courthouse being the Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse in Detroit, once the EEOC issues a right-to-sue notice.
In a Macomb County plant or hospital case, the venue question turns on the theory. If the case is about a refusal to place you in a vacant job, the ADA’s express reassignment duty makes the federal count worth having, even if it lets the employer remove the case to Detroit. If the case is about being fired after asking, retaliation, the PWDCRA alone in Mount Clemens, with no cap and no charge requirement, is often the cleaner route. A Macomb jury of people who have worked in the plants understands what a “no restrictions” letter does to a family. The Macomb County employment lawyer page has more on the Mount Clemens jury pool and the state-versus-federal decision.
The courthouse is the same whether you worked at the Tech Center in Warren, a defense contractor in Sterling Heights, or Henry Ford Macomb in Clinton Township.
TACOM, General Dynamics, and the two different rulebooks
Macomb County’s defense workforce is split between federal civilian employees at the Detroit Arsenal and private employees at General Dynamics Land Systems and the supplier tier beneath it. The disability rules differ more than most people expect.
If you are a federal civilian employee at TACOM, the ADA does not apply to you. The Rehabilitation Act does, with the same substantive standards. The process is different: you must contact your agency’s EEO counselor within 45 days of the denial or discipline, not 300, and the case runs through the agency and the EEOC’s federal-sector process before it can reach the Eastern District. Compensatory damages are capped, and there are no punitive damages against the government. Michigan’s PWDCRA does not reach the federal government at all. The 45 days is the whole game; if you are inside it, act today.
If you work for General Dynamics or a contractor, you are a private employee and the ADA and PWDCRA apply normally. Two wrinkles. First, a security clearance is not an essential function the employer can hide behind; if your accommodation had nothing to do with the clearance, the clearance is not a reason to deny it. Second, if a clearance was suspended or revoked because of a mental-health disclosure, courts generally will not review the government’s clearance decision, so the case has to be built around what the contractor did with the information and when.
Veterans with service-connected disabilities at any of these employers should also know that disclosure is voluntary. If you disclosed, the employer’s obligations attached; if you did not, the employer cannot be held to what it did not know. Either way, put the request in writing.
What to do in the first 72 hours
More on the pattern: accommodation denied, now fired. If your leave was FMLA and the trouble began at certification, see fired after asking for FMLA leave.
- Email the accommodation request to HR now. Name the limitation and the change you need in plain language; this starts the ADA clock in your favor and satisfies the PWDCRA’s 182-day written-notice rule.
- Copy your record before the badge stops working. The return-to-work notes, plant medical correspondence, the attendance printout, the FMLA paperwork, and any “no work available” or “full duty” letter.
- Send a Bullard-Plawecki personnel-file request. Michigan’s Employee Right to Know Act requires access on written request, and the medical and placement notes are usually in it.
- Get a one-page functional letter from your doctor. Limitation, expected duration, suggested accommodation; not the diagnosis history the employer is not entitled to.
- Do not sign the severance. The release inside it ends the ADA and PWDCRA claims, and the review period exists so a lawyer can read it.
- Do not resign to “protect your record.” A resignation is much harder to challenge than a termination, and the unemployment claim goes with it.
Macomb County disability discrimination questions
Can a Macomb County plant count my disability-related absences as attendance points?
Not automatically. Absences covered by approved FMLA cannot be pointed at all. For absences the FMLA does not cover, the ADA and PWDCRA may require the employer to modify its attendance standard as an accommodation if you asked for that in writing and the modification is reasonable. Terminating at the point threshold without discussing alternatives is evidence of a failure to accommodate. Match every absence to a medical record and get the printout.
I am a civilian employee at TACOM in Warren. Who handles my disability discrimination complaint?
Not the EEOC on the 300-day schedule, and not Michigan’s PWDCRA. Federal employees are covered by the Rehabilitation Act and must contact the agency’s EEO counselor within 45 days of the discriminatory act. The complaint then proceeds through the agency and the EEOC’s federal-sector process before any lawsuit in federal court. The 45-day window is strict, so start it now and gather the request and denial in writing.
My Macomb County employer wants a “no restrictions” note before I can return. Is that legal?
Generally no. A policy requiring employees to be fully healed before returning ignores the ADA’s requirement that the employer consider whether you can do the job with accommodation. Courts have treated blanket “100% healed” policies as evidence of discrimination. Give the employer your doctor’s actual restrictions, ask in writing what jobs you can perform with them, and keep the written response.
If my skilled-trades job is physically demanding, am I still “qualified” under the ADA?
You are qualified if you can perform the essential functions of the job with or without a reasonable accommodation. Marginal duties do not count, and how the job is actually done matters more than the written description. A millwright who cannot lift 80 pounds alone but can with a hoist or a partner, as others already do, is qualified. The employer has to show the duty is essential and that no accommodation works.
Can my Macomb County hospital refuse to move me off night shift for a medical condition?
It cannot refuse without considering it. A shift change is a recognized accommodation, and a hospital with day-shift positions has to explain why placing you in one is an undue hardship. A collective bargaining agreement that assigns shifts by seniority is a real factor, but the employer still has to look for vacancies and alternatives. Ask for the change in writing, name the condition generally, and keep the answer.
Talk to a disability discrimination lawyer who takes Macomb County cases
If a Macomb County employer sent you home on restrictions, pointed you out for medical absences, or fired you after you asked for help, call (313) 701-2448 or set up a free 15-minute case evaluation. I will tell you which deadline is closest and whether the paper you have makes a case.
Warren Astbury, Harvard Law School, J.D. 2009. Fifteen years representing employees only, with more than 50 cases tried to verdict. Hours are Monday through Friday, 9 to 5.
The neighboring counties have their own pages: Wayne County, Oakland County, and Washtenaw County disability discrimination lawyer.