Sexual Harassment Lawyer for Wayne County
Something happened at work that should not have. A team leader at the plant, a physician on your unit, a manager who texts you at night.
You said no, or you reported it, and now your hours are cut, the write-ups have started, or you are out of a job. Whether you have a case comes down to two things: conduct that meets the legal definition of sexual harassment, or retaliation for reporting it, plus evidence that it happened. That is what I look for on the first call. The case evaluation is a free 15-minute conversation, and termination cases are handled on contingency. The deadline that bites first is federal: an EEOC charge within 300 days of the last incident. Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act gives you three years, but do not plan around the longer clock. Call (313) 701-2448.
How sexual harassment cases look in Wayne County
Wayne County has about 1.75 million people and the largest single-site employers in Michigan. The harassment cases that come out of it follow the workplace.
Plant floors in Dearborn, Detroit, and Wayne
Ford’s Rouge Complex, Stellantis’s Detroit Assembly Complex on the east side, GM’s Factory ZERO in Detroit-Hamtramck, and Ford Michigan Assembly in Wayne run on shifts, and a line worker spends every one of them with the same team leader and the same crew. When one of them decides a woman in the skilled trades is there to be commented on, the conduct is daily, and the person who could stop it is often the one doing it. The evidence: the group-chat messages, photos of what was posted at the workstation, the date you called the company hotline, the steward’s notes, and the attendance record showing the points began after you complained.
Hospital units at Henry Ford, DMC, and Corewell
Henry Ford Health, the Detroit Medical Center, and Corewell Health’s Dearborn, Taylor, and Wayne hospitals employ tens of thousands of nurses, techs, and aides. Two patterns recur. A physician, sometimes not even a hospital employee, treats the unit as his and the staff as his to touch or proposition. Or a patient does, and the charge nurse says it is part of the job. Neither is lawful once the hospital knows. The evidence: incident reports filed in the hospital’s system, emails to the nurse manager, the staffing assignments that kept sending you back into that room, and the coworkers who saw it.
Downtown offices, casinos, and the airport
Rocket Companies, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, DTE Energy, and the Detroit casinos employ a workforce where harassment moves through Teams and Instagram rather than across a shop floor. The quid pro quo version is a manager who ties a promotion or a good schedule to going out with him. At Detroit Metro Airport in Romulus, ground-handling and catering contractors layer supervisors over workers with little job security, and a harassed employee’s hours quietly disappear. The evidence: screenshots of every message before you are locked out, the schedule before and after you said no, and the promotion announcement for the person who did not. City of Detroit, Wayne County, and Wayne State employees add a written complaint procedure to that list; the investigation file it produces is evidence too.
The law that applies
Two statutes cover most Wayne County cases, and they are not interchangeable.
Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (MCL 37.2101) defines sexual harassment to include both quid pro quo and hostile-environment conduct. It applies to employers with one or more employees, so a six-person shop in Lincoln Park is covered the same as Ford. You have three years to file, no agency step is required, and there is no cap on emotional-distress damages. For a hostile environment, the employer is responsible when someone in higher management knew or should have known and failed to take prompt, adequate action; for quid pro quo by a supervisor, it is liable outright. ELCRA also lets you name the harasser personally as an agent of the employer.
Title VII covers employers with 15 or more employees. You must file an EEOC charge within 300 days of the last act of harassment, at the Detroit Field Office, before you can sue. Compensatory and punitive damages are capped at $50K–$300K depending on employer size. Title VII carries the Faragher/Ellerth defense: if a supervisor harassed you but no tangible action (firing, demotion, pay cut) followed, the employer can escape liability by proving it had a reasonable complaint procedure and you unreasonably failed to use it. That is why reporting in writing matters so much, and it is what the reporting sexual harassment in Michigan post walks through.
Then there is retaliation. Under MCL 37.2701 and Title VII, punishing you for complaining about harassment is a separate violation. You do not have to prove the harassment itself was severe enough to be unlawful, only that you complained in good faith and were punished for it. In many Wayne County cases the retaliation claim is the stronger one, because the timing is on paper.
| Claim | Who’s covered | Deadline | Damages |
|---|---|---|---|
| ELCRA sexual harassment | Any Michigan employer, 1+ employees; harasser can be named individually | 3 years, direct to court | Back pay, front pay, uncapped emotional distress, attorney fees |
| ELCRA retaliation (MCL 37.2701) | Same | 3 years from the retaliatory act | Same |
| Title VII sexual harassment | 15+ employees | EEOC charge within 300 days | Back pay, front pay, compensatory and punitive capped at $50K–$300K, fees |
| Title VII retaliation | 15+ employees | EEOC charge within 300 days of the retaliation | Same caps |
The trap is assuming the three-year clock is the one that counts. If your employer has 15 or more employees and you want the federal claim, day 301 closes it. The Michigan employment claim deadlines page lays the clocks side by side.
Where your Wayne County sexual harassment case gets filed
State claims go to the Wayne County Circuit Court, Michigan’s 3rd Judicial Circuit, at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, 2 Woodward Avenue, Detroit. Federal claims go a few blocks west, to the Eastern District of Michigan’s Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse at 231 W. Lafayette Boulevard.
For a harassment case the choice is sharper than for most claims. Filing only ELCRA counts in the 3rd Circuit keeps the uncapped emotional-distress damages, skips the EEOC step, and keeps the case in front of a Wayne County jury. Adding a Title VII count lets the employer remove the whole case to federal court, where summary judgment comes faster and damages are capped. The Wayne County employment lawyer page covers the jury pool and venue in more detail.
Cases from the western suburbs file in the same building. A nurse harassed at Trinity Health Livonia or a supplier employee in Canton is a Livonia or Canton resident with a Detroit courthouse. So is a Ford employee from Dearborn.
When the harasser is in your bargaining unit
A large share of Wayne County’s harassment cases come out of UAW-represented plants, and the union adds a wrinkle few websites explain. The union represents you. It also represents the coworker harassing you. Your steward may be sympathetic and still be obligated to defend him at his disciplinary hearing.
Three things follow. First, use the company’s channel anyway. Ford, Stellantis, and GM each have an anti-harassment policy and a hotline, and a written report to labor relations or HR is what defeats the Faragher/Ellerth defense and puts higher management on notice for ELCRA purposes. Telling your steward alone may not. Second, the grievance procedure enforces the contract, not the civil rights laws; a grievance about your discipline does not pause the 300-day EEOC clock, and losing it does not end your ELCRA claim. Third, if the union refused to process a grievance because the harasser has more seniority, that may be a separate duty-of-fair-representation claim with a six-month deadline.
What to do in the first 72 hours
- Screenshot everything tonight. Texts, DMs, Teams messages, and photos of what was posted at your workstation, with dates visible, sent to a personal account before your badge and login are cut.
- Put the complaint in writing if you have not. An email to HR or labor relations that uses the words “sexual harassment” and names the conduct is what makes the employer answerable for what happens next.
- Write the timeline. First incident, each report you made, who you told, what changed afterward, and the date of the firing or resignation.
- Request your personnel file. Michigan’s Bullard-Plawecki Employee Right to Know Act requires access on written request, and the file shows whether the write-ups existed before you complained.
- Do not sign the severance. The release inside it ends both the harassment claim and the retaliation claim, and the deadline on it is long enough to get advice.
- Do not resign yet. Constructive discharge is a real claim in Michigan, but it is harder to prove than a firing, so talk to a lawyer before you hand in notice.
Wayne County sexual harassment questions
Can I sue the harasser personally in a Wayne County sexual harassment case?
Under Michigan’s ELCRA, yes. Michigan courts allow an individual supervisor or coworker who harassed you to be named as an “agent” of the employer and held personally liable. Title VII does not allow individual liability; only the employer is a defendant. Naming the harasser matters for leverage and for small employers, and it is one reason many Wayne County cases are filed in the 3rd Circuit rather than federal court.
My union at a Detroit-area plant also represents the coworker harassing me. What do I do?
Report to the company, in writing, not only to your steward. The union owes a duty to both of you, and a complaint to a steward may never reach management. A written report to HR or labor relations puts the employer on notice, which creates its liability under ELCRA and defeats the federal Faragher/Ellerth defense. Keep a copy, and let the grievance run in parallel; it does not pause any statutory deadline.
A patient at a Detroit hospital harassed me, not a coworker. Does my employer have any responsibility?
Yes, once it knows. Hospitals are liable for harassment by patients, physicians with privileges, and vendors when they know or should know about it and fail to take reasonable steps: reassigning the patient, changing the staffing, involving security, restricting the physician. “It comes with the job” is not a legal defense. File the incident report, email your manager so there is a dated record, and note who else saw it.
I quit because of the harassment. Can I still bring a claim in Wayne County?
Possibly. Michigan recognizes constructive discharge: if the employer made conditions so intolerable that a reasonable person would have felt compelled to resign, the resignation is treated as a firing for damages purposes. The harassment claim itself does not depend on quitting; it exists whether you stayed or left. But constructive discharge is harder to prove than a termination, so get advice before resigning if you have not already.
Do texts and Instagram DMs count as evidence in a Michigan harassment case?
They are often the best evidence there is. Messages from the harasser show the conduct in the harasser’s own words, with timestamps, and messages you sent a friend or coworker the same night corroborate your account. Screenshot them with dates showing, back them up outside your phone, and do not delete anything, including your own replies. Deleting messages, even embarrassing ones, damages credibility far more than their content would have.
Talk to a sexual harassment lawyer who takes Wayne County cases
If the harassment happened at a Wayne County plant, hospital, office, or airport, and reporting it cost you your job or your hours, call (313) 701-2448 or schedule a free 15-minute case evaluation. You will get a straight answer about whether you have a claim and which deadline is closest.
Warren Astbury. Harvard Law School, J.D. 2009. More than 50 cases tried to verdict in 15 years, every one of them for an employee. I do not represent employers. If the retaliation is what brought you here, read fired after an HR complaint next.
Harassed at work in a neighboring county? See the pages for Oakland County, Macomb County, and Washtenaw County.