Wrongfully fired in Wayne County? You need a trial-tested employment lawyer who knows Wayne County juries.
Start with the honest answer. Michigan is an at-will state, so most firings in Wayne County are legal, including the unfair ones. What makes a firing unlawful is the reason behind it. You were fired because you were pregnant, because you took FMLA leave, because you asked for an accommodation, because you reported harassment, or because of your race, sex, age, or disability. If that describes you, and you have the emails, texts, write-ups, or witnesses to back it up, you may have a case.
Finding out costs nothing. The case evaluation is a free 15-minute call, and termination cases are handled on contingency. I’m Warren Astbury, Harvard Law 2009. I’ve tried more than 50 cases to verdict over 15 years, and I represent employees only. Never employers.
Move quickly. Some Michigan deadlines run three years. The Whistleblowers’ Protection Act gives you 90 days. Call (313) 701-2448.
Why Wayne County employment cases are their own thing
Wayne County is Michigan’s largest county, roughly 1.75 million people, and its workforce is organized around a handful of very large employer types.
The auto industry is still the base. Ford’s world headquarters and the Rouge Complex are in Dearborn, Ford Michigan Assembly in Wayne, Ford Livonia Transmission in Livonia. Stellantis runs the Detroit Assembly Complex on the east side. General Motors is downtown. Around them sits a supplier layer, Roush Industries in Livonia, Yazaki North America in Canton, and dozens of Tier-1 and Tier-2 shops through the Downriver industrial corridor.
Healthcare is the second pillar. Henry Ford Health and the Detroit Medical Center together employ tens of thousands of nurses, techs, and aides. Corewell Health Dearborn (the former Beaumont Dearborn) and Trinity Health Livonia anchor the western suburbs. Wayne State University, the Detroit Public Schools Community District, the City of Detroit, and Wayne County government add a very large public payroll. Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus, one of Delta’s largest hubs, adds airline crews, ground-handling contractors, and TSA screeners. Downtown adds DTE Energy, Rocket Companies, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.
Two things follow. First, Wayne County employers are big and well defended, with HR departments, progressive-discipline systems, and defense counsel on retainer. Their paper trail hurts you if they have it and you don’t, and helps you if you kept your copies. Second, an unusually large share of this workforce is unionized, works for a public body, or both. That changes the process in ways most law-firm websites get wrong.
Where Wayne County employment cases get filed
State-law claims file in the Wayne County Circuit Court, Michigan’s 3rd Judicial Circuit, at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, 2 Woodward Avenue, Detroit. That is where Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA), Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act (PWDCRA), and Whistleblowers’ Protection Act (WPA) cases go. The jury is drawn from Wayne County residents: Detroit, the Downriver cities, the western suburbs, the Grosse Pointes. It is a working jury. People who have punched a clock or worked a hospital floor understand what it looks like when an employer builds a file on someone.
Federal claims (Title VII, the ADA, the ADEA, the FMLA) file at the Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse, 231 W. Lafayette Boulevard, Detroit, the seat of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Federal juries draw from a wider multi-county area, and federal court moves faster to summary judgment. Employers know this, and when a complaint includes a federal claim, the defendant can remove the whole case there.
So the state-versus-federal choice is a real decision. ELCRA has a three-year limitations period and no cap on emotional-distress damages. Title VII’s compensatory and punitive damages are capped by statute based on employer size. In many Wayne County cases the right move is to file only state claims and keep the case at 2 Woodward. In others, a federal claim adds something the state statutes don’t reach.
Federal discrimination claims also require an EEOC charge within 300 days, filed at the Detroit Field Office in the Patrick V. McNamara Federal Building, 477 Michigan Avenue. ELCRA claims need no agency filing first.
Cities we serve in Wayne County
I handle cases from every city and township in the county. Cities with their own page are linked.
| City | Notes / major employers | Page |
|---|---|---|
| Detroit | Stellantis Detroit Assembly Complex, GM, DTE Energy, Rocket Companies, Henry Ford Health, Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State, DPSCD, City of Detroit | Detroit employment lawyer |
| Dearborn | Ford world headquarters, Ford Rouge Complex, Corewell Health Dearborn, Henry Ford College, City of Dearborn | Dearborn employment lawyer |
| Livonia | Roush Industries, Trinity Health Livonia, Ford Livonia Transmission, Schoolcraft College, AAA Life | Livonia employment lawyer |
| Westland | Ford Michigan Assembly (Wayne), Trinity Health, retail and distribution corridor, City of Westland | Westland employment lawyer |
| Canton Township | Yazaki North America, IKEA, Ford supplier base, Plymouth-Canton Community Schools | Canton employment lawyer |
| Taylor | Downriver logistics and distribution, Ford Woodhaven complex nearby | — |
| Romulus | Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Delta hub, ground-handling and TSA contractors, Wayne County Airport Authority, freight corridor | — |
| Dearborn Heights | Ford and supplier workforce, City of Dearborn Heights | — |
| Redford Township | Detroit-border industrial and trades workforce | — |
| Wyandotte | Downriver industrial corridor, Henry Ford Wyandotte area healthcare | — |
| Southgate | Downriver retail and services, Southgate Community Schools | — |
| Lincoln Park | Downriver manufacturing, Ford Rouge commuters | — |
| Allen Park | Ford offices and supplier operations | — |
| Garden City | Western Wayne trades and healthcare workforce | — |
| Grosse Pointe, Grosse Pointe Woods, Grosse Pointe Farms, Grosse Pointe Park, Grosse Pointe Shores | Professional and healthcare workforce commuting to Detroit employers | — |
| Northville | Western Wayne professional and supplier-engineering workforce | — |
| Plymouth | Automotive supplier and engineering base, Plymouth-Canton schools | — |
| Hamtramck | GM Factory ZERO area, City of Hamtramck | — |
| Highland Park | Detroit-border industrial workforce, City of Highland Park | — |
| Inkster | Western Wayne trades and service workforce | — |
| Trenton | Downriver industrial corridor, Trenton Public Schools | — |
| Woodhaven | Ford Woodhaven complex, Downriver logistics | — |
| Van Buren Township | Belleville-area supplier and distribution base near DTW | — |
In a neighboring county, the same statutes apply but the courthouse changes. See the Oakland County employment lawyer, Macomb County employment lawyer, and Washtenaw County employment lawyer pages.
What we handle for Wayne County workers
Demoted, written up, or fired after announcing a pregnancy, or refused a light-duty or schedule change you needed while pregnant. That is pregnancy discrimination under ELCRA, Title VII, and the 2023 Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. It shows up constantly in nursing units and on plant floors, where lifting requirements become the pretext.
Fired during or shortly after FMLA leave, or after asking for it. That is FMLA retaliation. Shift-based auto and hospital jobs generate these cases because attendance points and intermittent leave collide. See evidence for FMLA retaliation.
Pushed out after asking for a disability accommodation or returning from injury with restrictions. That is an ADA and PWDCRA accommodation and retaliation case. In Wayne County these cluster in physically demanding work: assembly, skilled trades, patient handling, ramp work at DTW. See accommodation denied, now fired.
Sexually harassed, reported it, and the consequences landed on you. Sexual harassment under Title VII and ELCRA covers the conduct, and retaliation for reporting it is a separate claim. See fired after an HR complaint.
Disciplined harder, passed over, or fired because of your race or national origin, or for complaining about it. Race discrimination and retaliation under Title VII, Section 1981, and ELCRA. These cases come from every sector in the county.
Paid less, held back, or fired because of your sex or gender identity. Gender discrimination and retaliation under Title VII, ELCRA, and the Equal Pay Act.
A “restructuring” that somehow only reached the workers over 50. Age discrimination under the ADEA and ELCRA, common in auto engineering and downtown corporate roles. Read RIF or age discrimination before you sign the severance.
A cease-and-desist letter or lawsuit over a non-compete. Non-compete defense for engineers, sales staff, and healthcare professionals changing Wayne County employers.
All of this sits under wrongful termination in Michigan, the general page if you are not sure where you fit. Every claim has a clock; the Michigan employment claim deadlines page lists them.
Union grievance or lawsuit? What Big Three and supplier workers need to understand
A large share of Wayne County’s auto workforce is covered by a collective bargaining agreement. If you were fired from a Ford, Stellantis, or GM plant, or a unionized supplier, your union will file a grievance about whether the company had just cause under the contract. That process belongs to the union. It decides whether to arbitrate and how hard to push.
Your statutory rights are separate. A grievance does not waive your claims under ELCRA, Title VII, the ADA, or the FMLA, and losing one does not end them. Those claims belong to you and are decided in court, not by an arbitrator reading the contract.
Here is the part most websites miss. The grievance does not stop the statutory clocks. The EEOC’s 300 days and the WPA’s 90 days keep running while your grievance sits at step two. Workers wait out a grievance for a year and lose claims they never knew they had.
One more deadline. If the union handled your grievance in bad faith, that is a duty-of-fair-representation claim with a six-month limitations period. If the grievance is not moving, call now, not after arbitration.
DTW, airline, and airport-contractor workers in Romulus
At Detroit Metro Airport, the rules depend on who signs your paycheck.
Airline employees fall under the Railway Labor Act, so contract disputes go to a system board of adjustment. Discrimination, FMLA, and retaliation claims still go to the EEOC and to court on the same deadlines as everyone else.
Ground-handling, fueling, cleaning, and catering contractors are ordinary private employers. The jobs are physical and injury-related leave is common, which is where FMLA and accommodation retaliation cases come from. The recurring problem is identifying which of several stacked contractors is actually your employer.
TSA screeners are federal employees. Their discrimination complaints run through the federal-sector EEO process, which starts with a 45-day deadline to contact an EEO counselor. Miss it and the claim is usually gone.
Wayne County Airport Authority employees are public employees, which brings in the WPA’s 90-day clock, discussed next.
Hospital workers and public employees: the WPA’s 90-day trap
Two Wayne County groups generate most whistleblower calls: hospital staff at Henry Ford, DMC, Corewell Dearborn, and Trinity Livonia who reported a patient-safety or billing problem, and City of Detroit, Wayne County, DPSCD, and Wayne State employees who reported misconduct. Here is the honest version.
Michigan’s Whistleblowers’ Protection Act protects you when you report, or are about to report, a violation of law to a public body: a state licensing agency, the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, the Attorney General, a court, law enforcement. It does not protect a purely internal complaint to your manager or HR. If you told your director that a nurse was diverting medication and were fired for it, that is not a WPA claim, no matter how wrong the firing was. If you told the State of Michigan, it is.
The deadline is 90 days from the retaliatory act, not from when you realized what happened. Nearly every other Michigan employment deadline is measured in years. This one is measured in weeks.
The internal-complaint gap is not always fatal. If your internal complaint was about discrimination or harassment, retaliation for making it is covered by ELCRA and Title VII, with their longer deadlines. If it was about safety, billing, or fraud and stayed inside the building, the picture is harder. I will tell you which it is on the call. Details are on the whistleblower retaliation page. And public employees’ union contracts and civil-service appeals follow the same rule as the plants: none of them stop the WPA clock.
What to do in the first 72 hours after you’re fired in Wayne County
- Forward yourself the evidence before you lose access. Emails, texts, Teams messages, reviews, write-ups, the FMLA paperwork, the accommodation request, the HR complaint. Send them to a personal account tonight. Most Wayne County employers cut system access within hours.
- Write the timeline down. Hire date, the protected activity, when treatment changed, who said what, the firing date. Dates turn a story into a case.
- Request your personnel file in writing. Michigan’s Bullard-Plawecki Employee Right to Know Act requires your employer to let you review and copy it on written request. Send it now.
- Do not sign the severance agreement yet. Every severance presented at termination contains a release of all claims, and the release is usually worth more than the check. Read Michigan severance agreements explained first.
- Note your witnesses. Names, roles, what each one saw.
- File for unemployment. A firing does not disqualify you unless the employer proves misconduct, and the reason it gives on that paperwork becomes evidence.
- If your union is filing a grievance, let it. Then check your statutory deadlines separately.
- Call a lawyer before you talk to HR again. What you say now gets used.
Wayne County employment law questions
Is Michigan an at-will state? Can I still sue for wrongful termination in Wayne County?
Yes, Michigan is at-will, and yes, you can still sue when the firing was for an unlawful reason. At-will means an employer can fire you for a bad reason or no reason. It cannot fire you because of your race, sex, age, disability, pregnancy, or religion, or because you took FMLA leave, requested an accommodation, reported harassment, or reported a legal violation to a government agency. The reason is what matters, and evidence of the reason is what wins.
How long do I have to file a wrongful termination claim in Wayne County, Michigan?
It depends on the claim. ELCRA and PWDCRA claims carry a three-year limitations period. FMLA claims are two years, or three if the violation was willful. Federal discrimination claims (Title VII, ADA, ADEA) require an EEOC charge within 300 days of the act. Michigan Whistleblowers’ Protection Act claims must be filed within 90 days. Get the deadlines confirmed for your facts early, because the shortest one controls your options.
What does it cost to hire an employment lawyer in Wayne County?
The case evaluation is a free 15-minute call. Termination cases are handled on a contingency fee, meaning the fee comes out of a recovery at the end and you owe no attorney fee if there is none. Non-compete defense, where the goal is stopping a lawsuit rather than winning a recovery, is typically billed differently, and I will explain that up front before you commit to anything.
I’m in a union at a Ford or Stellantis plant. Does the grievance replace a lawsuit?
No. The grievance decides whether the company had just cause under the collective bargaining agreement, and the union controls it. Your rights under ELCRA, Title VII, the ADA, and the FMLA are separate, belong to you, and are decided in court. The grievance does not pause the 300-day EEOC deadline or the 90-day WPA deadline. Pursue the grievance and protect the statutory claims at the same time.
Do I have to file with the EEOC before suing my Wayne County employer?
Only for federal claims. Title VII, ADA, and ADEA claims require an EEOC charge, filed within 300 days at the Detroit Field Office in the McNamara Building at 477 Michigan Avenue, before you can sue. Michigan’s ELCRA and PWDCRA have no agency-filing requirement, so a state-law case can go straight to Wayne County Circuit Court. FMLA claims also go directly to court without an agency charge.
My employer says I was fired for performance. Does that end my case?
No. Almost every employer states a legitimate reason. The question is whether that reason is the real one. Timing (fired three weeks after the FMLA request), shifting explanations, a clean record until the protected activity, harsher treatment than coworkers who did the same thing, and a written policy the employer skipped are all evidence of pretext. A performance excuse is the start of the analysis, not the end.
Wayne County pages for the cases I take most
Each page covers the employers, the courthouse, and the deadlines for that claim in Wayne County.
Pregnancy discrimination in Wayne County
Fired, demoted, denied light duty, or “reorganized” out after announcing a pregnancy.
FMLA retaliation in Wayne County
Discipline, a lost position, or a firing that follows protected medical leave.
Disability discrimination (ADA & PWDCRA) in Wayne County
A denied accommodation, a “no restrictions” policy, or a firing after you asked for help.
Sexual harassment in Wayne County
Harassment at work, and what happens after you report it.
Talk to a Wayne County employment lawyer
If you were fired in Wayne County and think the reason was your pregnancy, your leave, your accommodation request, your complaint, or who you are, call (313) 701-2448 or schedule a free 15-minute case evaluation. I will tell you whether you have a case and which deadline is closest.
Warren Astbury. Harvard Law School, J.D. 2009. More than 50 cases tried to verdict. Fifteen years in practice. Employee-side only. Read about the firm, see case results, or browse the FAQ and blog.