Fired after EEOC charge, accountant alleges Northrop Grumman retaliated

According to the filing, the plaintiff says his supervisor ran what he describes as “a sustained and escalating campaign of disparate treatment, hostility, belittlement, false accusations, and discriminatory conduct” tied to his sex, race, and national origin. He alleges he was the only man and the only native-born American in his work group, and that the supervisor set goals he calls mathematically impossible – he says he was told to take on eight projects in a week when only six existed. 

The sequence is where HR teams should slow down. The plaintiff says he first raised his supervisor’s conduct with Northrop Grumman’s HR department. He alleges that soon after, on February 25, 2026, he was placed on a 30-day performance improvement plan he describes as built to fail. 

He then filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on April 10, 2026, and the agency issued a Notice of Right to Sue on April 21. On May 6, the complaint says, the company fired him by phone, effective immediately, on the day he came back from a pre-approved vacation – and cancelled his health insurance the same day. By his math, that was about 26 days after the charge and roughly 15 days after the right-to-sue notice. 

There is a wrinkle that any employer’s lawyer would not enjoy. The plaintiff alleges his supervisor “acknowledged that Plaintiff’s performance had improved during the thirty (30)-day PIP,” yet the company still gave insufficient improvement as the reason for the firing. He argues that does not add up, and says the gap points to a retaliatory motive. 

The sharpest claim is personal. The plaintiff says his supervisor falsely told the company he had submitted “fabricated and fraudulent timesheets during a hurricane emergency,” when, he says, he had evacuated his home and was working from a hotel. He has filed a defamation per se claim against her individually, arguing the accusation imputes “criminal or fraudulent conduct” to him as a licensed attorney.