Younger colleagues got improvement plans - he says he was fired outright instead
A veteran engineer says Ford fired him five months before a pension milestone - while younger, non-Indian colleagues got the improvement plans he never received.
A former engineer at Ford Motor Company has sued the automaker, alleging he was fired because of his national origin and age and to stop him from reaching an enhanced pension, according to a complaint filed July 21, 2026, in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
The filing says the engineer, who is of Indian national origin and was 59 at the time, worked for Ford for about 33 years as both a contractor and a direct employee. It describes him as holding a master's in mechanical engineering and an MBA, and as a certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt who contributed to vehicle programs including the Lincoln LS and the Bronco.
His problems began in early 2024, the complaint alleges, when he was assigned a new supervisor. According to the filing, that supervisor questioned and undermined his work before issuing the worst interim performance review of his career in August 2024 - after supervising him for only a few months. The engineer rebutted the review through Ford's internal system, and the complaint says the supervisor later acknowledged that management had not been fully aware of the full scope of his work. The rating was not revised, the filing states.
When the engineer asked whether his job was at risk, he was assured it was not, the complaint alleges. He was then given four additional objectives for the rest of 2024 and, according to the filing, completed all four and exceeded expectations on three.
On January 16, 2025, Ford terminated him without warning, without a performance improvement plan, and without a final performance review, the complaint says. When he asked whether he had violated any company policy, he was told he had not, according to the filing.
The comparison at the center of the case is what HR leaders will note. The complaint alleges that a younger Caucasian female employee under the same supervisor was placed on a performance improvement plan, completed it, and kept her job. It also alleges that a younger Caucasian male working on the same Bronco program, with only a couple of years of service, was given a plan rather than being fired. The engineer, who the filing says had more than 29 years credited toward his pension, alleges he was offered no such option.
Timing drives the lawsuit. At termination, the filing states, he was five months short of 30 years of service - the point at which, the complaint alleges, substantially enhanced pension and retirement benefits would have become available. The complaint claims Ford ended his employment to prevent him from reaching that milestone.
The engineer brings claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Michigan's Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, and Section 510 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which bars terminating a worker to interfere with benefits. According to the complaint, he filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in July 2025 and received a notice of right to sue in April 2026.
For HR teams, the filing is a reminder of how uneven discipline can read in hindsight. When one employee is terminated while peers in the same group receive improvement plans, consistency becomes the obvious question - and, where a pension milestone is near, so does the question of motive. The complaint also alleges the engineer suffered severe emotional distress and sought medical and psychological help.
None of these allegations have been tested, and no court has ruled on any of the claims.
