Sixth Circuit: Comparator/Replacement Proof and Proper Appellate Briefing Are Threshold Requirements for § 1983/ELCRA Employment Claims at Summary Judgment

I. Introduction

In Carlotta Collins v. City of Detroit, Michigan, dba Detroit Water and Sewerage Department; Mihai Facaeanu; Carlos Vazquez, the Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment against a longtime City of Detroit employee who alleged race and sex discrimination, retaliation, and hostile work environment. Collins sued the City and two supervisors under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Equal Protection) and under Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA). During the litigation she was terminated for alleged time-record falsification and added claims for ELCRA retaliation and a violation of Michigan’s Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA).

The appeal turned less on disputed workplace facts and more on evidentiary and briefing thresholds: (1) whether Collins could satisfy the prima facie requirement to identify a proper comparator or replacement for disparate-treatment claims; (2) whether she could rebut the employer’s reason for termination by a developed pretext argument in her opening brief; and (3) whether perfunctory references preserved hostile-environment and WPA issues for appellate review.

II. Summary of the Opinion

Discrimination (Equal Protection via § 1983; ELCRA): Collins failed to establish a prima facie case because she produced no evidence that she was replaced by someone outside her protected classes and identified no similarly situated comparator who was treated better.
ELCRA retaliation (termination): Assuming a prima facie case, the City articulated a legitimate reason—unauthorized remote work, alleged dishonesty about hours worked, and leaving early without permission—and Collins failed to argue pretext in her opening brief; a reply-brief pretext argument was too late.
Hostile work environment & WPA: Forfeited on appeal due to undeveloped briefing.
Seventh Amendment challenge to summary judgment: Rejected as foreclosed by Supreme Court precedent.

III. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

1. Standards of review and summary judgment

Cooper v. Dolgencorp, LLC: Cited for de novo review of summary judgment, reinforcing that appellate courts independently apply Rule 56 without deference to the district court’s conclusions.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a): Supplies the governing standard—no genuine dispute of material fact and entitlement to judgment as a matter of law.
Briggs v. Univ. of Cincinnati: Reaffirms viewing evidence and inferences in the nonmovant’s favor; important here because the court still found Collins’s evidence legally insufficient even under that favorable lens.

2. § 1983 framework and the ELCRA pathway

Novak v. Federspiel: Provides the basic § 1983 structure—identify the constitutional right and show deprivation under color of state law. The court used this to frame Collins’s Equal Protection theory before applying the employment-discrimination evidentiary framework.
Christian Healthcare Ctrs., Inc. v. Nessel: Cited for the proposition that ELCRA is Michigan’s vehicle for workplace discrimination claims, grounding Collins’s state-law counts in the statutory scheme.

3. Borrowing Title VII methods for Equal Protection and ELCRA claims

Deleon v. Kalamazoo Cnty. Rd. Comm'n: Cited to justify analyzing Equal Protection employment discrimination claims under the same framework used for Title VII disparate-treatment claims.
Laster v. City of Kalamazoo: Used twice: (i) to apply Title VII-style analysis to ELCRA discrimination claims; and (ii) to state the elements of an ELCRA retaliation claim.

4. Direct vs. circumstantial evidence; the McDonnell Douglas structure

Lowe v. Walbro, LLC: Defines direct evidence—proof that, if believed, requires concluding discrimination was at least a motivating factor. Collins proceeded without direct evidence, pushing the case into circumstantial proof requirements.
Moore v. Coca- Cola Bottling Co. Consol.: Supplies the circumstantial-evidence route and articulates the prima facie elements used by the court (protected class, adverse action, qualification, and replacement/comparator evidence).
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green: The controlling burden-shifting framework: prima facie case → employer’s legitimate reason → plaintiff’s proof of pretext. The court’s discrimination analysis ended at step one (prima facie).

5. Comparator rigor in the Sixth Circuit

Hayes v. Clariant Plastics & Coatings USA, Inc.: Defines a similarly situated comparator as “similar in all of the relevant aspects,” a standard the court used to evaluate (and reject) Collins’s proposed comparators.
O'Donnell v. City of Cleveland: Adds the “nearly identical” gloss and specifies the typical comparator requirements: same supervisor, same standards, same conduct, and no differentiating circumstances. This case largely dictated the outcome because Collins compared herself to management (not similarly situated) and offered no developed comparator proof.

6. Retaliation and the centrality of pretext proof

Hayward v. Cleveland Clinic Found.: Applied to hold that claims not defended in response to summary judgment (and later revived on appeal) are forfeited. This allowed the court to narrow the retaliation case to termination only.
Jackson v. Genesee Cnty. Rd. Comm'n: Used to state the retaliation burden-shifting approach once a prima facie case is assumed and a legitimate reason is articulated.
Chen v. Dow Chem. Co.: Provides the classic Sixth Circuit pretext triad: (i) no basis in fact; (ii) did not actually motivate the decision; or (iii) insufficient to warrant the action. The court emphasized that Collins pursued none of these in her opening brief.

7. Appellate preservation and briefing discipline

Am. Trim, L.L.C. v. Oracle Corp.: Cited twice to enforce appellate practice: arguments raised for the first time in a reply brief are not considered, and courts will not build arguments for litigants from a fact recitation.
Buetenmiller v. Macomb Cnty. Jail: Establishes forfeiture where issues are mentioned perfunctorily without developed argumentation—dispositive for hostile work environment and WPA.

8. Summary judgment and the Seventh Amendment

Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore and Fid. & Deposit Co. of Md. v. United States: Foreclose the argument that summary judgment violates the Seventh Amendment. The court treated Collins’s constitutional objection as settled law.

B. Legal Reasoning

1. Discrimination claims fail at the prima facie stage (replacement/comparator evidence)

The court’s discrimination holding is a reminder that even when adverse actions and membership in protected classes are undisputed, the plaintiff must still supply replacement evidence or a proper comparator to create an inference of discrimination under the circumstantial-evidence framework. Collins did neither:

No replacement proof: The record contained no evidence that she was replaced by a white or male employee. Her statement that her termination was later reversed in arbitration did not fill that evidentiary gap for the prima facie inquiry as framed on appeal.
No similarly situated comparator: For sex discrimination, she invoked her supervisors (management) and another individual without showing similarity in relevant aspects; for race discrimination, she identified no comparator at all.
Deposition concessions: The court also highlighted that Collins disclaimed discriminatory motive for several events (performance evaluation, merit increase denial, promotion denial, meeting “disrespect”), undercutting any inference that the adverse actions occurred “because of” race or sex.

Structurally, this illustrates the Sixth Circuit’s insistence that comparator evidence is not a mere technicality: it is often the mechanism that transforms workplace conflict into a legally cognizable inference of discrimination.

2. Retaliation claim fails at the pretext stage due to lack of developed argument

On retaliation, the court assumed (without deciding) that Collins could establish a prima facie case, then moved directly to pretext. The City’s stated reason—unauthorized remote work, alleged misrepresentation of hours, and unauthorized early departure—qualified as a legitimate, nonretaliatory rationale. The decisive point was procedural-substantive: Collins did not substantively argue pretext in her opening brief.

By treating pretext as “straightforward” and focusing on whether defendants “are telling the truth about why they fired Collins,” the panel reinforced a practical lesson: when an employer offers a concrete rule-violation rationale, a plaintiff must engage that rationale with evidence and a recognized pretext theory. Attempting to supply that engagement only in a reply brief triggers the Am. Trim bar.

3. Hostile work environment and WPA: appellate forfeiture for perfunctory treatment

The court applied Buetenmiller to treat the hostile-environment and WPA claims as forfeited, because the opening brief did not develop supporting argumentation. The opinion reflects a recurring Sixth Circuit approach: appellate courts will not act as “backup counsel” by extracting legal theories from undeveloped references.

4. Seventh Amendment: summary judgment is constitutionally permissible

The Seventh Amendment argument was dispatched as settled: summary judgment does not violate the right to a jury trial where no genuine dispute of material fact exists, per Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore and Fid. & Deposit Co. of Md. v. United States.

C. Impact

Comparator discipline as a gatekeeping function: For § 1983 Equal Protection and ELCRA disparate-treatment claims litigated on circumstantial evidence, the decision underscores that plaintiffs must do the work of identifying and proving “similarly situated” comparators under O'Donnell/Hayes—particularly when proposed comparators are managers or otherwise outside the plaintiff’s employment category.
Pretext briefing is outcome-determinative: The retaliation discussion illustrates that courts may assume a prima facie case yet still affirm if the plaintiff does not confront pretext head-on, in the opening brief, using the Chen pathways.
Appellate preservation is substantive: The forfeiture rulings show how quickly claims can be lost on appeal when briefing is cursory, even if the underlying record is extensive.
Persuasive rather than binding value: Because the opinion is “Not Recommended for Publication,” its formal precedential force is limited, but its reasoning aligns with and operationalizes established Sixth Circuit doctrine—making it a useful roadmap for litigants and district courts.

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

Summary judgment (Rule 56): A pretrial ruling for the movant when, even taking the other side’s evidence as true and drawing reasonable inferences in their favor, the law still requires a win for the movant.
Prima facie case (McDonnell Douglas step one): The minimal showing needed to raise an inference of discrimination/retaliation; without it, the case can end before the employer must justify its decision.
Comparator (“similarly situated employee”): An employee used as a benchmark. The comparator must typically have the same supervisor and standards and engage in similar conduct, without meaningful differences that explain disparate treatment.
Pretext: The plaintiff’s proof that the employer’s stated reason is not the real reason. Under Chen v. Dow Chem. Co., a plaintiff can show (1) the reason is factually false, (2) it didn’t actually motivate the decision, or (3) it was insufficient to justify the decision.
Forfeiture on appeal: Losing the right to appellate review of an issue because it was not properly developed and argued in the opening brief (or was raised too late, such as only in a reply brief).

V. Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit’s affirmance in Carlotta Collins v. City of Detroit, Michigan is a doctrinally orthodox but practically instructive decision. It emphasizes that employment-discrimination plaintiffs proceeding on circumstantial evidence must supply competent replacement/comparator proof to reach a jury, and retaliation plaintiffs must meaningfully address pretext—early and within the structure recognized by circuit law. Equally, it warns that appellate courts will enforce briefing rules strictly: undeveloped issues and reply-brief arguments will not rescue claims from summary judgment.