Age Discrimination Lawyer for Wayne County
You spent twenty years at a Wayne County plant, hospital, or downtown office with good reviews. Then a new manager arrived, “energy” started showing up in meetings, and your name was on the restructuring list while the thirty-year-olds stayed.
Here is the one-sentence test: if the people kept skew young, the people cut skew old, and the stated reason does not survive a look at your file, you may have a case. Finding out is free. The case evaluation is a 15-minute call, and termination cases are handled on contingency. The deadline that bites 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. I handle age discrimination cases from Detroit, Dearborn, and the rest of the county, for employees only.
How age discrimination cases look in Wayne County
Wayne County’s employers are large, unionized, and run by HR systems built to document. That shapes how age cases arrive and what wins them.
The salaried buyout at the automakers
Ford in Dearborn, GM at Factory ZERO in Detroit-Hamtramck, and Stellantis at the Detroit Assembly Complex all carry large salaried workforces that get trimmed with “voluntary” separation programs. The program itself is usually lawful. The problem is what happens around it: an engineer who declines the package finds a performance improvement plan on her desk the next quarter, or the managers deciding who is “surplus” apply a rating that quietly tracks age. The evidence is the offer letter, the age-and-title disclosure federal law requires with a group release, your last five reviews, and any message suggesting that declining had a cost.
“Not tech-savvy” on a hospital unit
Henry Ford Health, the Detroit Medical Center, Corewell Health Dearborn and Taylor, and Trinity Health Livonia regularly move nurses and techs onto new charting systems. A 58-year-old nurse with a spotless record gets written up for “documentation errors” during the rollout while younger staff make the same errors without a note in their file, and within a year her position goes to a new graduate. The evidence is the training roster showing who got extra sessions, the unit’s error reports, and the age of the person now doing your job.
The realignment in a downtown office
Rocket Companies, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, DTE Energy, and the City of Detroit and Wayne County government offices all reorganize, and a reorganization is not unlawful. What matters is the selection: whether “role eliminated” meant your duties went to someone fifteen years younger under a new title, and whether “culture fit” or “runway” came up in deciding who stays. The evidence is the org chart before and after, the announcement email, and the job posting that looks a lot like the job you just lost. The same pattern runs through the airlines and ground-handling contractors at Detroit Metro in Romulus, where “keep up” does the work that “runway” does downtown.
The law that applies
Two statutes reach a Wayne County age case, and they are not the same.
The federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act protects workers 40 and older at employers with 20 or more employees. It requires an EEOC charge within 300 days at the Detroit Field Office. After Gross v. FBL, you must show age was the but-for cause of the decision, not merely one factor. The ADEA pays back pay and front pay, doubled as liquidated damages when the violation was willful, but nothing for emotional distress and no punitive damages.
Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (MCL 37.2202) is broader on every axis that matters. It covers employers with one or more employees. It protects all ages, so a Livonia supplier that passes over a 36-year-old as “too green” is reachable too. It gives you three years to file directly in circuit court, with no agency step, and emotional-distress damages are uncapped. Under Elezovic v. Ford Motor Co., 472 Mich 408 (2005), the supervisor who made the decision can be named personally.
The trap is the calendar. Wayne County workers assume the three-year state clock covers everything and call at month twelve, after the federal charge window has closed. The state claim survives; the liquidated-damages claim does not. Every clock is on the Michigan employment claim deadlines page.
| Claim | Who’s covered | Deadline | Damages |
|---|---|---|---|
| ELCRA age (Michigan) | Any employer with at least one employee; every age, not just 40+ | Three years, filed directly in Wayne County Circuit Court | Back pay, front pay, uncapped emotional distress, attorney fees; supervisor can be personally liable |
| ADEA (federal) | Workers 40+ at employers with 20 or more employees | EEOC charge within 300 days, then suit | Back pay and front pay; doubled as liquidated damages if willful; no emotional-distress or punitive damages |
| OWBPA release rules (federal) | Any worker 40+ asked to waive ADEA claims | 21 days to consider (45 in a group layoff), 7 days to revoke | An invalid waiver does not release the ADEA claim |
Where your Wayne County age discrimination case gets filed
An ELCRA-only case files in the Wayne County Circuit Court at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, 2 Woodward Avenue, Detroit. Add an ADEA count and the employer can remove the case to the Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse at 231 W. Lafayette Boulevard, the main courthouse of the Eastern District of Michigan, where summary judgment comes sooner and but-for causation governs the federal claim.
For age cases specifically, the state courthouse has real pull. The uncapped emotional-distress claim, the all-ages coverage, and individual liability for the decision-maker all live in ELCRA. What the ADEA adds is liquidated damages for a willful violation, a trade worth making in some cases and not others. The Wayne County employment lawyer page covers the jury pool and venue in more detail.
Where in the county you worked does not change the building. A Dearborn product engineer, a Livonia plant supervisor, and a Detroit claims manager file in the same two courthouses.
Buyouts, special-attrition programs, and the release you are handed
Wayne County’s automakers, hospital systems, and utilities all use separation packages, so this county produces more releases signed by workers over 40 than any other. The release is the employer’s real purchase. Three things to know before you sign.
First, federal law sets minimums. Under the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act, a waiver of ADEA claims must give you 21 days to think it over, or 45 days when the offer goes to a group, plus seven days to revoke after signing, and it must tell you in writing to consult a lawyer. Skip any of that and the ADEA waiver fails.
Second, the group disclosure is evidence. When the package is part of a group program, the employer must attach the job titles and ages of everyone selected and everyone in the same unit who was not. Keep that document. It is often the clearest picture of the age skew you will get without discovery.
Third, if you are UAW-represented, a grievance about the selection belongs to the union and enforces the contract. Your ADEA and ELCRA claims belong to you, and the grievance stops neither clock. Read RIF or age discrimination? and Michigan severance agreements explained before the 21 days run.
What to do in the first 72 hours
- Forward yourself the record tonight. Your last several reviews, the restructuring announcement, the buyout offer, any email mentioning retirement, energy, or fit, and the termination letter, to a personal account before your badge stops working.
- Keep the age-and-title disclosure. If your severance came with a list of who was selected and who was not, that list is evidence; do not lose it and do not sign until it has been read.
- Write down the comments. Who asked when you planned to retire, who called the team “long in the tooth,” and who else heard it.
- Request your personnel file in writing. Michigan’s Bullard-Plawecki Employee Right to Know Act requires the employer to produce it, and it will show whether the “performance problem” existed before the new manager arrived.
- Identify your replacement and your comparators. The name and approximate age of the person doing your job now, and the younger coworkers with the same numbers who stayed.
- Do not retire or resign to make it stop. A voluntary retirement turns a termination case into a much harder constructive-discharge case.
Wayne County age discrimination questions
I took a salaried buyout at a Wayne County automaker because I was told my job would be gone either way. Can I still bring an age discrimination claim?
Possibly. A buyout is only a defense if it was actually voluntary and the release met federal requirements: 21 days to consider, 45 for a group program, seven days to revoke, written advice to see a lawyer, and the age-and-title disclosure. A package accepted under a threat of termination, or without those protections, may not release the ADEA claim, and ELCRA claims are analyzed separately.
My Detroit hospital replaced me with a nurse 25 years younger after calling me “not tech-savvy.” Is that evidence of age discrimination?
Yes, both parts are. Replacement by a substantially younger worker is a core piece of an age case, and “not tech-savvy” is the kind of remark that juries and courts read as a proxy for age when it comes from the decision-maker. Pair it with your prior reviews, the training records showing who got help with the new system, and error data for younger staff who were not written up.
I work for the City of Detroit or Wayne County government. Do age discrimination laws apply to a government employer?
Yes. The ADEA covers cities and counties, and Michigan’s ELCRA covers public employers of every size. The federal-sector process that applies to TSA screeners and other federal employees at DTW does not apply to municipal workers. What changes for public employees is the paper: civil-service rules, union contracts, and layoff-by-seniority provisions, which are evidence of whether the stated selection method was actually followed.
The layoff disclosure my Wayne County employer gave me shows almost everyone cut was over 50. What do I do with it?
Keep it, copy it, and do not sign the release until a lawyer has read it against the list. That disclosure is required by the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act for group layoffs, and an age skew on it is exactly the pattern an ADEA or ELCRA case is built on. A layoff is not unlawful on its own; the selection criteria and who they landed on are what get examined.
My supervisor at a Wayne County plant kept asking when I was going to retire, and then I was let go. Does that count as age discrimination?
It can. Repeated retirement questions from the person who made the decision, close in time to the firing, are evidence that age was on the decision-maker’s mind, and under ELCRA that supervisor can be sued personally. One stray remark rarely carries a case alone; a pattern of remarks plus a sudden rating decline or selection for layoff does. Write down every instance now.
Talk to an age discrimination lawyer who takes Wayne County cases
If you were cut, bought out, or pushed toward retirement at a Wayne County automaker, hospital, airport contractor, or public agency and the people who stayed are younger, call (313) 701-2448 or schedule a free 15-minute case evaluation. I will tell you whether the pattern and the paper 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. Working in another county? See the age discrimination pages for Oakland County, Macomb County, and Washtenaw County.