FMLA Retaliation Lawyer for Washtenaw County
In Washtenaw County, the FMLA question comes with a second question attached: who is your employer? A nurse at Michigan Medicine, a research coordinator at the University of Michigan, an engineer at Toyota’s York Township campus, and a clinical assistant at Trinity Health Ann Arbor can be fired for the same reason after the same leave and end up with four different legal paths.
Michigan is at-will, and most terminations are lawful. Punishing an eligible employee for taking or requesting protected leave is not, and if the discipline follows the leave closely enough, you may have a case worth pursuing.
The 15-minute case evaluation is free, and termination cases are handled on contingency. The FMLA gives you two years from the retaliatory act, three only for a willful violation, and requires no agency charge. Read the statewide FMLA retaliation page for the statute. This page is about how the claim works, and where it does not, in Washtenaw County.
How FMLA retaliation cases look in Washtenaw County
Twelve-hour shifts at Michigan Medicine and Trinity Health Ann Arbor
Hospital nurses, techs, and aides in Ann Arbor often work three twelve-hour shifts a week, and intermittent FMLA leave gets counted in hours against that schedule, not in days. A nurse whose normal week is 36 hours has 432 hours of leave, and a leave administrator who counts each missed shift as a full “day” of a five-day week runs out the entitlement early. When the leave is “exhausted” ahead of schedule and the next absence draws a final warning, the arithmetic is the case. The evidence is your schedule, the leave-balance statements, and the absences the employer counted.
Staff and research employees at the University of Michigan
U-M is the county’s dominant employer, and its non-faculty workforce, administrative staff, lab managers, IT, facilities, dining, generates FMLA calls constantly. The pattern is usually leave for the employee’s own condition followed by a non-renewal, a reclassification, or a termination framed as a funding decision. The complication is that U-M is an arm of the State of Michigan, which changes what can be recovered and from whom. I cover that below. The evidence is the appointment letter, the leave approval, the funding or reorganization paperwork, and who else on the grant kept their position.
Engineers and corporate staff at Toyota R&D, Forvia, and Domino’s
The private white-collar layer, Toyota Motor North America R&D in York Township, Forvia in Saline, Domino’s headquarters in Ann Arbor Township, and the tech firms downtown, produces well-documented cases. A manager receives a leave request and, within days, asks for a second medical opinion, questions whether the condition is “really serious,” and starts a paper trail that ends in a termination weeks after return. The evidence is the reviews before the request, the manager’s emails about the leave, the second-opinion correspondence, and the termination memo.
Family-care leave at EMU, Ann Arbor Public Schools, and the county
Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor Public Schools, Washtenaw County government, and the city of Ann Arbor are public employers, covered by the FMLA regardless of headcount. Their employees more often take leave to care for a child, spouse, or parent than for themselves, and the family-care claim is the one that survives sovereign immunity even against the state. The evidence is the request, the family member’s certification, and the schedule or discipline changes that followed. Ford’s Rawsonville plant in Ypsilanti Township is the county’s one large union shop, and its FMLA cases look like Wayne County’s: attendance points and a UAW grievance running alongside.
The law that applies
The FMLA is federal and Michigan has no state equivalent, so the basic claim under 29 U.S.C. § 2615 is the same here as anywhere: an eligible employee (12 months, 1,250 hours) of a covered employer (50 within 75 miles, or any public agency) was interfered with or punished for leave. Two years to sue, three if willful, no EEOC step.
What is different in Washtenaw County is the employer mix. The University of Michigan, including Michigan Medicine, is an arm of the state, and the Eleventh Amendment bars a suit for money damages against it under the FMLA’s self-care provision. It does not bar money damages for family-care leave, and it does not bar a suit for reinstatement against university officials. VA Ann Arbor employees are federal and fall under Title II of the FMLA, which courts have generally held gives no private right to sue at all. Everyone else, Trinity Health, IHA, Toyota, Forvia, Domino’s, Zingerman’s, the Rawsonville plant, is an ordinary private employer with full exposure.
For U-M employees, Michigan’s Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act and ELCRA fill part of the gap. The state has consented to suit under its own civil rights statutes, so a U-M employee whose leave was for a disability or pregnancy can pursue uncapped emotional-distress damages in state court even where the FMLA self-care claim is barred.
| Claim | Who’s covered | Deadline | Damages |
|---|---|---|---|
| FMLA (federal), private and local-government employers | 50+ employees within 75 miles, or any public agency; 12 months and 1,250 hours | 2 years, 3 if willful; no agency step | Lost pay, matching liquidated damages absent proven good faith, reinstatement or front pay, fees |
| FMLA against the University of Michigan | Same eligibility | Same | Family-care leave: full damages; self-care leave: reinstatement against officials only, no money damages |
| PWDCRA / ELCRA (Michigan), including against U-M | 1+ employees | 3 years; PWDCRA accommodation request in writing within 182 days | Lost pay and uncapped emotional distress, fees |
| ADA / Title VII (federal), private employers | 15+ employees | EEOC charge within 300 days | Compensatory and punitive damages capped at $50K–$300K |
All of these clocks are collected on the Michigan employment claim deadlines page.
Where your Washtenaw County FMLA retaliation case gets filed
FMLA claims from Washtenaw County go to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. The court’s main courthouse is the Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse at 231 W. Lafayette Boulevard in Detroit; it also sits at the federal building at 200 E. Liberty Street in Ann Arbor, though assignment is not by county and a Washtenaw case may be heard in either. Filing an FMLA count in the Washtenaw County Trial Court, the 22nd Circuit at 101 E. Huron Street in Ann Arbor, is permitted, but a private employer will remove it.
The state courthouse matters more here than in most counties. A PWDCRA or ELCRA claim filed alone in the 22nd Circuit cannot be removed, keeps the case in front of a Washtenaw jury, and for a U-M employee may be the only route to money damages. The Washtenaw County employment lawyer page discusses that jury pool, which is among the most educated in the state and follows a timeline closely.
Whether you worked downtown, at the medical campus, or in Saline, the Ann Arbor employment lawyer page covers the city itself, and the courthouse analysis is the same for Ypsilanti, Pittsfield Township, Chelsea, and Dexter.
University of Michigan employees: what sovereign immunity does and does not take away
This is the section most Washtenaw County FMLA pages skip, and it is the one that decides U-M cases.
The University of Michigan is a constitutional corporation of the State of Michigan, and the Supreme Court has held that states cannot be sued for money damages under the FMLA’s self-care provision, the one that covers leave for your own serious health condition. If you are a U-M or Michigan Medicine employee who took leave for your own surgery, cancer treatment, or mental-health condition and were fired for it, you cannot recover back pay or liquidated damages from the university under the FMLA. That is the law, and any lawyer who tells you otherwise has not read it.
Three things remain. First, the family-care provision is different: the Supreme Court upheld money damages against states for leave to care for a spouse, child, or parent, so a U-M employee fired for caring for a family member has a full FMLA claim. Second, you can sue the responsible university officials for reinstatement and other forward-looking relief, though not for damages, and in this federal circuit suing a supervisor personally for money is not a workaround. Third, and often most valuable, Michigan’s PWDCRA and ELCRA apply to the university with no immunity problem. If your self-care leave was for a disability, the retaliation is very likely also disability retaliation, and that claim carries three years and uncapped damages in the 22nd Circuit.
Faculty, lecturers, house officers, and research scientists add a layer: non-renewal is not termination, and the contract or collective bargaining agreement governs the first question. Bring the appointment letter to the call.
Trinity Health and IHA are private, so none of this applies to them. VA employees should start with the agency’s EEO office and their union, not a private lawyer. Read fired after asking for FMLA leave if the retaliation started before the leave was approved.
What to do in the first 72 hours
- Forward your leave records to a personal account tonight. Approvals, leave-balance statements, certifications, and every email about the leave, before the university or hospital deactivates your account.
- Pull your schedule for the leave period. For shift workers, the hour-by-hour count of what the employer charged against your entitlement is the evidence.
- Send a written personnel-file request under Michigan’s Bullard-Plawecki Employee Right to Know Act. U-M and the hospitals are covered, and the file shows when the decision was first documented.
- If your leave was for your own condition, write the accommodation request now. Michigan’s PWDCRA protects only written requests, made within 182 days of knowing you need one, and for U-M employees this claim may carry the case.
- Do not sign a severance or a resignation. The release will name the FMLA, and a resignation is treated as voluntary.
- Write out who was told what, and when. Faculty and staff cases often turn on which administrator knew about the leave before the non-renewal decision was made.
Washtenaw County FMLA retaliation questions
I work for the University of Michigan or Michigan Medicine. Can I sue U-M for FMLA retaliation?
It depends on the kind of leave. For leave to care for a spouse, child, or parent, yes, with full money damages. For leave for your own condition, sovereign immunity bars money damages against the university under the FMLA; you can seek reinstatement against officials, and you can pursue Michigan’s PWDCRA or ELCRA in state court if the leave related to a disability or pregnancy. Those state claims often carry the case.
I’m a nurse on twelve-hour shifts at a Washtenaw County hospital. How are my twelve weeks of FMLA counted?
In hours, against your actual schedule. Twelve weeks means twelve times your normal weekly hours, so a nurse working three twelves a week has 432 hours, not sixty eight-hour days. Intermittent absences are charged in the smallest increment the employer uses for other leave, up to one hour. If your leave-balance statement ran out faster than that math allows, ask for the accounting in writing.
My employer at Toyota R&D or another private company wants a second medical opinion on my FMLA certification. Can they require that?
Yes, within limits. If the employer has reason to doubt a complete certification, it may require a second opinion at its own expense from a provider it does not regularly employ. If the two opinions conflict, a third, jointly selected, is binding. What the employer cannot do is delay or deny leave while the process drags on, or demand second opinions as a routine hurdle for everyone who asks.
Does the FMLA cover leave to care for my adult child in Ann Arbor?
Only in specific circumstances. Leave to care for a son or daughter 18 or older is covered when the adult child has a mental or physical disability and is incapable of self-care because of it. If those conditions are met, the leave is protected exactly like leave for a minor child. Get the child’s provider to certify both the condition and the need for care.
I took FMLA leave for postpartum depression and was fired when I came back. Is that an FMLA case, a pregnancy case, or both?
Usually both, and I plead both. Postpartum depression is a serious health condition under the FMLA, so firing you for the leave is FMLA retaliation. It is also a pregnancy-related condition under Michigan’s ELCRA and a known limitation under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which adds uncapped state-law damages and a three-year window to the two-year FMLA claim.
Talk to an FMLA retaliation lawyer who takes Washtenaw County cases
Call (313) 701-2448 or schedule a free 15-minute case evaluation. Tell me who your employer is first, because in this county that answer shapes everything that follows.
Warren Astbury, Harvard Law School, J.D. 2009. More than 50 cases tried to verdict in 15 years, employee-side only. I take FMLA cases from Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Saline, Chelsea, and the rest of Washtenaw County.
If you worked in one of the tri-county area’s other counties, see the Wayne County, Oakland County, and Macomb County FMLA retaliation pages.