Age Discrimination Lawyer for Macomb County
You have thirty years in at a Macomb County plant, engineering center, or hospital. The new supervisor started asking about your retirement plans, the overtime went to the twenty-somethings, and your name came up when the layoff list was made.
Here is the one-sentence test: if the workers who stayed are markedly younger, the reason you were given does not match your record, and someone said the quiet part out loud, you may have a case. Finding out costs nothing: a free 15-minute call, and termination cases are handled on contingency. The deadline that closes first is the EEOC’s 300-day window for the federal claim; Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Act gives you three years. I’m Warren Astbury, and I take age discrimination cases from Warren, Sterling Heights, and the rest of Macomb County, for employees only.
How age discrimination cases look in Macomb County
Macomb County still builds things, and its age cases come out of engineering floors, plants, defense programs, and the hospital units at Henry Ford Macomb in Clinton Township and McLaren Macomb in Mount Clemens, where the 60-year-old charge nurse’s sudden run of “documentation” write-ups precedes a replacement two years out of nursing school.
The engineer who “isn’t built for the transition”
The GM Global Technical Center in Warren employs thousands of salaried engineers and designers, and the shift to new platforms and software has become a sorting mechanism. A 56-year-old engineer with excellent reviews is rated “developing” on “future skills,” passed over for the new program, and selected in the next headcount reduction, while the 33-year-old on the same team is “retained for critical capability.” The evidence is the ratings history, the layoff criteria, the ages of who went to the new program, and any message about “digital natives” or “runway.”
Overtime and the hard jobs on the line
Stellantis Warren Truck and Sterling Heights Assembly, Ford Sterling Axle, and the supplier shops along Van Dyke and Groesbeck run on seniority for hourly UAW workers, which limits some age games. Non-union suppliers and salaried supervisors have no such protection. The older worker gets pulled off overtime, moved to the worst rotation, asked “how much longer are you planning to do this,” and eventually written up for pace. The evidence is the overtime distribution, the assignments before and after the new supervisor arrived, and which younger coworkers got the better work.
“Program ended” at the defense contractors
General Dynamics Land Systems in Sterling Heights and the defense suppliers around the Detroit Arsenal staff by program. When a program winds down, engineers are rolled onto the next one or let go. When the ones rolled forward are in their thirties and the ones released are over 55, “program ended” is a label, not an explanation. The evidence is the roster of who transferred and their ages, the staffing requests for the new program, and your qualifications for it.
The law that applies
Two statutes reach a Macomb County age case, and they differ in coverage, deadline, and damages.
The federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act covers workers 40 and older at employers with 20 or more employees. It requires an EEOC charge within 300 days at the Detroit Field Office before suit. Under Gross v. FBL, you must prove age was the but-for cause of the decision. A willful violation doubles lost wages as liquidated damages; there is nothing for emotional distress and no punitive damages.
Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, MCL 37.2202, covers employers with one or more employees, protects every age rather than only those over 40, allows three years to file straight in circuit court, and puts no cap on emotional-distress damages. Under Elezovic v. Ford Motor Co., 472 Mich 408 (2005), the supervisor who made the decision can be sued personally. For a twelve-person tool-and-die shop in Shelby Township, ELCRA is the only statute that applies.
The deadline trap in Macomb County is the grievance. Union members wait for it to run, and it runs past 300 days. The grievance enforces the contract; it does not stop the federal clock. Every deadline is listed on the Michigan employment claim deadlines page.
| Claim | Who’s covered | Deadline | Damages |
|---|---|---|---|
| ELCRA age (Michigan) | Employers with one or more employees; workers of any age | Three years, filed directly in Macomb County Circuit Court | Back pay, front pay, uncapped emotional distress, attorney fees; supervisor can be personally liable |
| ADEA (federal, private and municipal employers) | Workers 40 and older at employers with 20 or more employees | EEOC charge within 300 days, then suit | Back pay and front pay; doubled as liquidated damages when willful; no emotional-distress or punitive damages |
| ADEA (federal civilian employees, e.g., TACOM) | Workers 40 and older at a federal agency | EEO counselor within 45 days, or notice of intent to sue within 180 days | Back pay, front pay, reinstatement; liquidated damages generally unavailable |
Where your Macomb County age discrimination case gets filed
An ELCRA-only case files in the Macomb County Circuit Court, the 16th Circuit, at 40 N. Main Street in Mount Clemens. Add an ADEA count and the employer can remove the case to the Eastern District of Michigan, whose main courthouse is the Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse at 231 W. Lafayette Boulevard in Detroit, where summary judgment arrives sooner.
For age cases the state courthouse carries most of the value: uncapped emotional-distress damages, coverage at every age and employer size, and personal liability for the decision-maker. The ADEA adds liquidated damages when the violation was willful. In Macomb County the choice often turns on the jury. Mount Clemens juries come from the plants, the trades, and the hospitals, and they recognize a “pace” write-up thirty years into a career. The Macomb County employment lawyer page covers venue and the jury pool in more depth.
A Tech Center engineer from Warren, a defense-program engineer from Sterling Heights, and a charge nurse from Clinton Township file in the same two buildings.
TACOM civilians and defense-contractor employees: two different rulebooks
Macomb County has a group of workers most age discrimination pages ignore: federal civilians at the Detroit Arsenal and TACOM in Warren, and the private employees of the defense contractors alongside them.
If you are a federal civilian employee, Michigan’s ELCRA does not reach your employer, and the private-sector EEOC process does not apply either. The ADEA gives you two routes. Contact your agency’s EEO counselor within 45 days of the act and go through the administrative process, or skip it: file a written notice of intent to sue with the EEOC within 180 days of the act, wait 30 days, and file directly in federal court. That second route is unique to age claims and almost nobody knows it exists. Remedies are narrower; liquidated damages are generally unavailable against a federal agency.
If you work for General Dynamics Land Systems or a supplier in the defense chain, you are a private employee and both the ADEA and ELCRA apply normally. The wrinkle is the security clearance. Courts will not second-guess the government’s clearance decision, so the case is built on what the employer did: who was rolled onto the next program, what the staffing criteria said, and what the program manager said about the team’s “next generation.” Read RIF or age discrimination? for how a program wind-down is analyzed.
What to do in the first 72 hours
- Forward yourself the record tonight. Reviews, the layoff or program-end notice, overtime and assignment records, the message about your retirement plans, and the termination letter, to a personal account before your badge stops working.
- If you are a federal civilian at TACOM, mark 45 days on the calendar. The EEO counselor deadline runs from the act, and the 180-day notice route is a decision to make early.
- Do not sign the severance release yet. Federal law gives workers 40 and older at least 21 days to consider it and 7 to revoke, and a group layoff must come with a list of the titles and ages of who was selected and who was kept. Keep that list, and read Michigan severance agreements explained.
- Request your personnel file in writing. Michigan’s Bullard-Plawecki Employee Right to Know Act requires the employer to let you review and copy it, and the file will show whether the pace problem existed before the new supervisor.
- Write down who said what. The retirement questions, the “old guard” comments, who was in the room, and the dates.
- Do not retire to end it. A voluntary retirement is the employer’s best defense, and a constructive-discharge case is far harder to win than a termination case.
Macomb County age discrimination questions
My Sterling Heights supplier laid off the three oldest people in the department and kept the junior staff. Is that enough to prove age discrimination?
It is a strong start, not the finish. Three people is too small a group for statistics alone, so the case rests on the selection criteria the employer claims it used, whether it actually applied them, and how the younger people kept compare on those criteria. Save the layoff notice, the last several reviews for yourself, and the names and approximate ages of everyone in the department before and after.
My defense-contractor employer says my job ended because the program ended, but younger engineers were moved to the next program. Is that age discrimination?
It can be. A program ending is a legitimate reason to reduce staff; choosing who moves to the next program by age is not. The question is whether you were qualified for the new work and whether the people rolled forward were substantially younger. Keep the staffing announcements, your own qualifications for the new program, and anything the program manager said about building a “next-generation” team.
Can a Macomb County employer force me to retire at a certain age?
Almost never. The ADEA and Michigan’s ELCRA both prohibit mandatory retirement ages, with narrow federal exceptions for certain high-level executives with substantial pensions and for some public-safety positions. A “retirement” that follows a threat of termination, a demotion, or a performance plan aimed only at older workers can be treated as a firing. Do not agree to call it voluntary before a lawyer reviews it.
I’m a skilled tradesman over 60 at a Macomb County plant. I was pulled off overtime and given the worst jobs but not fired. Do I have a claim?
Possibly, though it is a harder case than a termination. Loss of overtime and reassignment to worse work can be adverse actions when they cost you pay or opportunity, and comments tying them to your age make them stronger. Document the overtime you lost against what younger coworkers received. Be aware that if you are UAW-represented, the contract may also govern the assignments.
My Macomb County employer replaced me with someone who is also over 40. Do I still have an age discrimination claim?
Yes, if the replacement is substantially younger. The law does not require the replacement to be under 40; the U.S. Supreme Court held in O’Connor v. Consolidated Coin Caterers that what matters is the age gap. A 62-year-old replaced by a 44-year-old has the same core fact as one replaced by a 30-year-old. Under ELCRA there is no age floor at all.
Talk to an age discrimination lawyer who takes Macomb County cases
If you were cut from a Macomb County engineering center, plant, defense program, or hospital after 50 and the people kept were younger, call (313) 701-2448 or schedule a free 15-minute case evaluation. I will tell you whether the selection and the comments add up to a case, and which deadline is closest.
Warren Astbury. Harvard Law School, J.D. 2009. Fifteen years in practice, more than 50 cases tried to verdict, employee-side only. In a neighboring county? See the age discrimination pages for Wayne County, Oakland County, and Washtenaw County.