⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

William Woods appeals summary judgment for the City of Detroit in an employment case. The dispute involves a disability-retirement application. On April fifth, twenty eighteen, Detroit's Police and Fire Retirement System accepted its medical director's recommendation and approved Woods's application for duty-disability retirement. Approval of a pension and notice of a final employment decision are not necessarily the same event. That distinction matters when a filing deadline turns on when a challenged decision was made and communicated. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or E E O C, receives administrative charges of workplace discrimination. The Americans with Disabilities Act uses these charge-filing procedures. In Michigan, disability-discrimination charges against covered employers generally have a three-hundred-day filing deadline. This is a deadline for the agency charge, not for filing a federal lawsuit. You will hear references to Delaware State College versus Ricks. There, the Supreme Court distinguished a decision denying tenure, made and communicated to an employee, from his later departure under a terminal contract. The later end of employment did not restart the filing clock. Applying that distinction requires identifying the challenged act and when it became final and was communicated. Summary judgment is a ruling without trial when there is no genuine dispute about a material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Equitable tolling, also mentioned in the argument, is a potentially available equitable exception to a filing deadline, not an automatic extension.

William Woods v. City of Detroit (No. 26-1045) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, argued October 21, 2026.