Gender Discrimination Lawyer for Oakland County
The comp statement confirmed it: the men at your level in the Auburn Hills tech center or the Troy office are paid more for the same work. Or the director job went to a man you trained.
Or you put the pay gap in an email to HR and your role was “restructured” away a month later. If the decision would have come out differently for a man, and you can name the man, you likely have a claim. The 15-minute evaluation is free, and termination cases are handled on contingency. The first clock to watch is Title VII’s 300-day EEOC deadline; the Equal Pay Act allows two years and Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Act three. I’m Warren Astbury, and gender discrimination and retaliation cases from Oakland County’s headquarters and hospitals are work I do, for employees only.
How gender discrimination cases look in Oakland County
Oakland County’s economy is headquarters, engineering centers, and hospitals. The cases come with paper.
The band you were hired into
Stellantis North America in Auburn Hills, Magna, BorgWarner, and Lear in Southfield, and the Nissan and Bosch technical centers in Farmington Hills all pay on job architectures: a level code, a salary band, a target bonus. The case lives in the placement. Two engineers with the same degree and hire year; he is placed a level up, so every merit increase and bonus compounds the difference for a decade. The Equal Pay Act asks whether the work is substantially equal, not whether the level codes match. The evidence is your offer letter, your level and band from the HR system, and your comp statements.
The pipeline that stops at manager
Corewell Health in Royal Oak and Troy, Ascension Providence in Southfield, and Henry Ford West Bloomfield have nursing staffs that are mostly women and executive teams that often are not. The unit manager who applies for director is told she “needs more executive presence,” and the job goes to a man with fewer years. The same words appear in the finance and insurance offices along Big Beaver. The evidence is the succession plan, the posting, the panel’s notes, and both candidates’ reviews. If the smaller role came back with you from maternity leave, that is the Oakland County pregnancy discrimination page.
Territories, accounts, and the commission plan
At Flagstar and Comerica, at Kelly Services and the sales organizations inside the supplier headquarters, pay is built on assignment. The house accounts go to the men. The growth territory goes to the man hired last year. Your quota is set higher. A sex-based difference in the accounts you are given is discrimination even when the commission percentage is identical. Men bring these cases too; a man steered off a team for not fitting a stereotype has the same claim. The evidence is the account list over time, the quota letters, and the commission statements.
The complaint, then the reorganization
The Oakland County retaliation case has a signature. An employee at a headquarters or a hospital writes to HR about the pay gap or the passed-over promotion. Within weeks there is a reorganization, the position is eliminated, and a severance agreement arrives. Retaliation for opposing sex discrimination is a separate claim under ELCRA and Title VII, and it survives even if the pay claim is close. I wrote about the sequence in fired after an HR complaint. The evidence is the dated complaint, the org chart before and after, and who took your duties.
The law that applies
Three statutes carry an Oakland County sex discrimination case, on different clocks.
Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (MCL 37.2101) applies to every employer with one or more employees. It prohibits sex-based decisions in pay, promotion, assignment, discipline, and discharge; gives three years to file; requires no agency charge; and puts no cap on emotional-distress damages. The Legislature added sexual orientation and gender identity in 2023, after the Michigan Supreme Court’s 2022 Rouch World decision had already read sexual orientation into the statute. Retaliation for opposing or reporting is covered at MCL 37.2701.
Title VII reaches employers with 15 or more employees. You must file an EEOC charge within 300 days at the Detroit Field Office, and compensatory and punitive damages are capped at $50K–$300K by employer size. Since Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), sex includes sexual orientation and gender identity. For pay, each discriminatory paycheck restarts the 300 days, which matters when the band placement was years ago.
The federal Equal Pay Act has no employee-count floor and no EEOC step. The comparison is to an opposite-sex employee doing substantially equal work in the same establishment, and once you show the gap the employer must prove it rests on seniority, merit, production, or a factor other than sex. Two years, three if willful, and willful violations double the unpaid wages. Michigan’s Workforce Opportunity Wage Act (MCL 408.423) has a parallel rule, usually pleaded alongside ELCRA.
The deadline trap here is the severance. The agreement gives you 21 days; the EEOC charge gives you 300; people spend the 300 negotiating the 21. Every clock is on the Michigan employment claim deadlines page.
| Claim | Who’s covered | Deadline | Damages |
|---|---|---|---|
| ELCRA (Michigan) | Employers with one or more employees | Three years, directly in circuit court | Back pay, front pay, uncapped emotional distress, fees |
| Title VII | 15 or more employees | EEOC charge within 300 days, then suit | Back pay; compensatory and punitive capped at $50K–$300K |
| Equal Pay Act | Nearly every employer | Two years; three if willful; no agency step | Unpaid wages, doubled if willful, fees |
Where your Oakland County gender discrimination case gets filed
A case pleaded only under ELCRA files in the Oakland County Circuit Court, the 6th Circuit, at 1200 N. Telegraph Road in Pontiac. Add a Title VII or Equal Pay Act count and the employer can remove it to the Eastern District of Michigan at the Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse, 231 W. Lafayette Boulevard, Detroit.
For pay and promotion cases the choice is about damages and speed. An Equal Pay Act claim brings liquidated damages without proving intent, which is why pure pay cases often go federal. A termination-after-complaint case with real emotional-distress damages often belongs in Pontiac under ELCRA alone, where no cap applies. The Oakland County employment lawyer page covers the jury pool.
The courthouse is the same whether you worked in Troy, Southfield, or Farmington Hills, and whether your employer is a global headquarters or a twelve-person firm in Rochester Hills.
Confidential pay bands and the reorganization defense
Two features of Oakland County headquarters shape these cases.
The first is pay secrecy. Most large employers here treat bands and salaries as confidential, and employees believe they cannot ask. Most non-supervisory private-sector employees have a federal right to discuss wages with coworkers, and an employer that disciplines the conversation has created a second claim. More practically, you do not need the number to file. Discovery produces the band placements, comp ratios, and merit history for every comparator, and that data usually settles the case. What I need at the start is your own level, your own history, and the names of the men you believe are paid more.
The second is the reorganization. Oakland County employers rarely fire a woman who has complained; they eliminate her position. The defense is that the decision was business-driven and predates the complaint. The evidence that beats it is the timeline: when the complaint was sent, when the reorganization was first documented, and whether the duties went to a man or were simply retitled. A reorganization that reaches exactly one person is not a reorganization. The severance that follows is the employer buying the release; read Michigan severance agreements explained first.
What to do in the first 72 hours
- Save your comp statements and level history tonight. Offer letter, merit and bonus letters, the HR-system screen showing your level and band, and your reviews, before your access ends.
- Write down the men. Name, title, level if you know it, hire date, and what you believe they are paid or were promoted into.
- Put the complaint in writing if it was only spoken. A dated email to HR saying you believe the decision was because of your sex is what a retaliation claim is built on.
- Request your personnel file under Michigan’s Bullard-Plawecki Employee Right to Know Act. Send the request by email so it is timestamped.
- Leave the severance unsigned and do not negotiate it yourself. The release covers every claim on this page, and your negotiating emails become exhibits.
- Do not resign to escape the reorganization. A resignation makes the case harder and can cost unemployment benefits.
Oakland County gender discrimination questions
My Troy employer says salary bands are confidential. Can I be disciplined for asking coworkers what they make?
Usually not. Most non-supervisory private-sector employees have a right under the National Labor Relations Act to discuss pay with coworkers, and a policy or discipline that forbids it is unlawful. If you were written up for the conversation after raising a sex-based pay gap, that discipline is also evidence of retaliation under ELCRA and Title VII. Keep the policy and the write-up.
I was told I’m “not ready” for a director role at an Auburn Hills headquarters and it went to a man with less experience. Is “not ready” enough for a case?
By itself, no. Paired with his résumé, it can be. A subjective reason like “not ready” or “lacks executive presence” is where courts look hardest, because it cannot be checked against anything. If you had more years, better reviews, or the credential he lacked, the label is evidence the real reason was sex. The posting, the panel’s notes, and the succession plan are what discovery targets.
I’m a sales rep at a Southfield company and the men on my team were given the bigger accounts. Is account assignment covered by discrimination law?
Yes. Assignment is a term or condition of employment under Title VII and ELCRA, and steering the revenue-generating accounts to men is sex discrimination even if the commission plan is identical on paper. The Equal Pay Act may also apply if the assignments produced a pay gap for substantially equal work. Save the account lists over time and your quota letters.
My Oakland County employer says the pay gap is because he has a master’s degree and I don’t, even though we do the same job. Does that end an equal pay claim?
Not necessarily. Education can be a factor other than sex under the Equal Pay Act, but only if the employer actually relied on it and it relates to the job. If the posting did not require the degree, if men without it are paid at his level, or if the gap widened over years of identical work, the explanation is thin. The employer carries the burden of proving it.
I was placed at a Farmington Hills tech center by a staffing agency. Who do I bring a gender discrimination claim against, the agency, the client, or both?
Often both. The agency signs the check, but the client company that directs your work, sets your assignments, and decided to end the placement can be a joint employer under Title VII and ELCRA. The agency is separately liable if it knew about the discrimination and kept placing you. Keep your placement agreement, timesheets, and the emails ending the assignment.
Talk to a gender discrimination lawyer who takes Oakland County cases
If you were paid below the men in your band, passed over, moved off the accounts, or reorganized out after complaining at an Oakland County headquarters, hospital, or supplier, call (313) 701-2448 or schedule a free 15-minute case evaluation. I will tell you whether the comparators and the timeline make a case.
Warren Astbury. Harvard Law School, J.D. 2009. Fifteen years representing employees, more than 50 cases tried to verdict, no employer clients. Another county? See the gender discrimination pages for Wayne County, Macomb County, and Washtenaw County.