The automaker allegedly replaced her part-time after insisting the role required full-time work
Ford fired a 14-year veteran after months of disputes over disability accommodations, a new federal lawsuit alleges.
The plaintiff, 52, claims the automaker discriminated against her on the basis of disability, age, and race, refused to follow the legally required process for negotiating workplace accommodations, and terminated her in retaliation for filing discrimination complaints.
The complaint, filed September 13, 2026, in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, brings five counts against Ford under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), and two Michigan civil rights statutes - the Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act and the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act.
The plaintiff has ADHD and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), conditions she managed through therapy and lifestyle changes while advancing steadily at Ford, according to the filing. The complaint states she joined the company in June 2011 as a project manager, moved into management by July 2015, and was promoted in 2022 to a senior-level electric vehicle platform program manager role.
To manage the administrative demands her disabilities made difficult, the plaintiff set up a "JobShare" arrangement with a colleague, allowing her to focus on strategic work while her partner handled day-to-day tasks, the filing says. According to the complaint, her supervisor at the time approved the arrangement and confirmed it would serve as an informal disability accommodation.
The complaint alleges the trouble started in April 2023, when a new supervisor took over. The plaintiff says she disclosed her ADHD diagnosis and the JobShare accommodation. The filing alleges the supervisor responded with escalating hostility - aggressively warning her to "be careful" when she raised burnout concerns about her team's months-long 60-hour weeks, and shutting down her attempts to flag potential procedural violations "with increasing hostility."
The complaint also alleges the plaintiff was excluded from work that accounted for roughly 75% of her planned annual workload, with meetings set to "private" in the company's calendar system to keep her out.
Despite the alleged treatment, the filing says the plaintiff kept delivering. The complaint states she received a corporate award in December 2023 for being on the only team to hit all milestones on time, and Ford included her in multiple promotional interview pools across late 2023 and early 2024.
Then things took a turn, according to the complaint. After the plaintiff disclosed in approximately December 2023 that a medication change was affecting her memory and attention, the filing says her supervisor told her it would not be a problem. Yet shortly after, according to the complaint, her year-end performance review dropped from "exceeds expectations" to "below expectations" - with no clear explanation for the shift.
The filing alleges that when the plaintiff and her JobShare partner questioned the review, the supervisor "became defensive and refused to respond to their questions" and "repeatedly shouted" at the plaintiff when she tried to leave the room after the meeting ran well past its scheduled 30 minutes. According to the complaint, a senior program manager who attended the meeting later expressed concern about the supervisor's behavior and encouraged the plaintiff to submit a formal rebuttal.
The complaint describes what it frames as escalating retaliation. According to the filing, the plaintiff was called into a surprise performance review from which her JobShare partner - who also served as a memory accommodation - was barred. When the plaintiff asked to record the meeting instead, as an alternative accommodation, Ford denied the request, the complaint states. The filing also alleges that the HR representative who was supposed to attend in place of the partner did not show up, and Ford offered no explanation for the absence.
The complaint alleges her 2024 mid-year review scores did not add up. According to the filing, the subcategory ratings she received made it "mathematically impossible" to produce the overall below-expectations score she was given. The filing states that, under Ford's own rounding policy - where scores of 0.67 or higher should be rounded up - her numbers should have produced at least a "meets expectations" rating. The complaint adds that the review's supporting text was "almost exclusively positive."
The plaintiff sought relief by moving to a temporary assignment with a high-visibility corporate task force, the filing says. According to the complaint, she thrived there - Ford's CEO publicly praised her work, and a director on the task force gave her an award for pulling a key launch ahead of schedule.
But the complaint alleges that director then discouraged the plaintiff from pursuing a role in another department. According to the filing, the director told the plaintiff "her disabilities would likely hinder future promotional opportunities" and that other leaders "would not be as tolerant of her disability limitations." The complaint says the director prefaced these remarks by stating, "HR is not in the conversation."
The filing says the plaintiff, "terrified by these statements," turned down the other department's offer and accepted a lateral move under conditions she negotiated with the director - including a specific software-focused workstream and a corresponding title. The complaint alleges the director then changed the terms, reassigning her work and placing her under a new manager who had no connection to her agreed-upon responsibilities.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff's new management team told her in January 2025 they had concerns about her "behavior," calling it "pushback." The filing says they could not provide a single specific example when the plaintiff asked. The complaint alleges one manager became "increasingly aggressive in his language, tone, volume, and body language, becoming red-faced and shouting at her on multiple occasions" during private video calls.
The complaint also alleges the plaintiff was falsely accused of making an inappropriate remark to a vendor. According to the filing, the vendor later contacted the plaintiff and "vehemently denied initiating a complaint" or discussing the plaintiff with anyone.
The plaintiff began medical leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) on February 13, 2025, according to the filing. The complaint states her health had deteriorated rapidly, with debilitating migraines, vertigo, insomnia, memory loss, and a 35-pound weight loss over roughly six weeks.
What followed, according to the complaint, was a months-long standoff over the ADA's interactive process - the back-and-forth negotiation the law requires when a disabled employee requests workplace accommodations. The filing says the plaintiff first contacted Ford about returning to work on March 25, 2025. Her requests were temporary - continued remote work, four-hour workdays, and changes to how her managers communicated with her, all for a two-month window so she and her medical team could reassess.
The complaint alleges Ford placed the plaintiff on "No Work Available" status instead of negotiating. According to the filing, her manager rejected the accommodations, stating only that the plaintiff "should only return to work in her current role when she is fully able to perform the function full time" - without identifying which specific job functions were affected or explaining why temporary accommodations would create an undue hardship.
The filing describes a tangle of misdirection. According to the complaint, Ford's HR team directed the plaintiff to its third-party disability provider; the provider directed her back to local HR; and local HR told her the manager had denied her request and sent her back to the provider. The complaint calls this a "bureaucratic Mobius strip."
Over the following weeks, the filing says, the plaintiff proposed alternatives including a new JobShare arrangement and offered to return part-time with a rapid transition to full-time. According to the complaint, Ford's HR representative canceled or rescheduled interactive process meetings repeatedly and at one point dismissed the plaintiff's request to meet, saying "there was no need" because her restrictions could not be accommodated.
During this same period, according to the complaint, Ford brought in another employee to take over the plaintiff's workstreams - starting in a part-time capacity. The filing says this directly contradicted Ford's repeated position that the role required full-time work. The complaint identifies the replacement as younger than the plaintiff, not disabled, and of a different race.
The plaintiff filed a complaint with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights (MDCR) on May 22, 2025, alleging failure to accommodate, disability discrimination, and retaliation, the filing states. According to the complaint, Ford prepared termination paperwork the same day the plaintiff notified the company of her MDCR filing. The complaint states multiple managers and HR leaders signed off on the termination on May 22 and 23, 2025.
The plaintiff filed an EEOC complaint on June 5, 2025, the filing says.
On July 2, 2025, the plaintiff attended what she believed would finally be an interactive process meeting, according to the complaint. Instead, the filing alleges, her manager told her she was being terminated for poor performance and "immediately left the meeting." An HR representative then advised her the termination was effective immediately.
The termination form, according to the complaint, cited "inconsistent performance and behavior" and accused the plaintiff of "becoming defensive" when given direction. The filing says these characterizations are contradicted by her documented record of positive reviews, a corporate award, a director's award, and recognition from Ford's CEO.
The plaintiff is seeking damages including lost wages, emotional distress, punitive damages, and attorneys' fees, and has demanded a jury trial.
The allegations in the complaint have not been tested, and no court has ruled on any of the claims.
