Bullard-Plawecki: What Michigan Employers Must Hand Over

What the Bullard-Plawecki Act Requires, in Plain Terms

MCL 423.501 et seq. is the controlling statute. Enacted in 1978 and amended multiple times since, the Act grants current and former employees the right to inspect and obtain copies of their own personnel records. The core inspection and copying rights have remained intact for over 45 years, making this one of the longest-standing employee privacy statutes in the Midwest.

Michigan is one of approximately 11 states with a codified personnel file inspection right, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. That matters because generic national HR guidance does not address Michigan's specific procedural requirements. An HR policy drafted for a multi-state employer without Michigan-specific tailoring will miss obligations that are unique to this statute.

The four-employee threshold is broad. Based on U.S. Census Bureau data, fewer than 2% of employer firms operate with zero to three employees at a given location, meaning approximately 98% of Michigan employer establishments are covered. If you employ four or more people in Michigan, this statute applies to you.

Files covered by the Act include performance reviews, disciplinary records, attendance records, compensation records, and signed agreements kept in the personnel file. Non-compete agreements kept in personnel files are part of that disclosable record, which is one reason file organization matters before any dispute arises.

Who Can Request, Who Must Respond, and How the Process Works

Current employees and former employees may both submit valid requests under the Act. The right does not expire upon separation, though the frequency of review is more limited for former employees than for current ones.

The written request requirement is not a formality. A verbal request does not trigger the statutory obligation. If an employee asks verbally and you respond verbally, you have not satisfied the Act and the employee can follow up with a written request that restarts the clock with no credit for your earlier response.

Once a written request is received, the employer's procedural obligations begin immediately:

1. Locate the complete personnel file.
2. Review it against the statutory exemptions and identify what may be withheld.
3. Produce or make available everything that is not exempt.
4. Document every step of the exchange, including the date the request was received, what was produced, and what was withheld and why.

The statute does not specify an exact response deadline. Michigan courts and the Department of Labor and Economic Growth have interpreted the Act's "reasonable time" standard as generally not exceeding seven business days. Do not treat that as a floor. If your file is well-organized and exempt materials are already segregated, you should be able to respond faster.

The employer may charge a reasonable copying fee. What the employer cannot do is use copying costs as a pretext to delay or deny access. Courts will see through that approach, and it converts a manageable compliance question into a credibility problem.

Current employees are limited to two requests per calendar year. Former employees have a more limited frequency right. If a current employee submits a third request in a calendar year, you may decline it, but you must have a documented log of the prior requests to invoke that defense credibly. Worker classification questions can also affect who qualifies as an employee entitled to request records, so confirm the employment relationship before treating someone as outside the Act's coverage.

What You Are Not Required to Disclose: The Exemptions

The Act does not require you to open the entire file without review. Six categories of records are expressly or effectively exempt from disclosure. Use this table as a working reference for HR managers reviewing a file before production:

Two practical rules apply when you invoke an exemption. First, log every withheld document. Do not simply remove it from the stack without recording what you pulled, the exemption category you are relying on, and the date of the decision. An exemption log is your evidence of good-faith compliance if the employee disputes your production. Second, misidentifying a non-exempt document as exempt is one of the most common compliance errors. A performance review written after hire is not a pre-employment record. A disciplinary memo is not a staff planning document. Getting that wrong does not just expose you to a Bullard-Plawecki claim; it damages your credibility in any subsequent litigation where the employee argues you were hiding something.

Penalties for Non-Compliance: The $200 Fine Is Not the Real Problem

MCL 423.512 sets the civil penalty for willful non-compliance at $200 per violation, plus actual damages, court costs, and reasonable attorney fees. Stop at the $200 figure and you are looking at the wrong number.

Attorney fee-shifting is the real exposure. In a contested non-compliance claim, a plaintiff's attorney who prevails is entitled to recover fees from the employer. Even a relatively simple claim litigated through a motion hearing can generate attorney fees far exceeding the underlying $200 penalty. Employers who ignore a personnel file request because the fine seems trivial are misjudging the economics entirely.

The evidentiary risk compounds the fee exposure. If a lawsuit or EEOC charge has been filed or is reasonably anticipated at the time the employer refuses to produce records, the non-production creates adverse inference arguments. A court or administrative body may infer that the materials not produced would have been harmful to the employer's position. In some circumstances, non-production crosses into spoliation territory, which carries its own sanctions.

Context matters here. The EEOC receives tens of thousands of workplace discrimination charges annually, and Michigan consistently ranks among the top states by charge volume. The probability that a terminated or disgruntled employee files a formal charge is not remote. Personnel file production and EEOC charge response are closely linked events for Michigan employers.

How the File Becomes a Litigation Asset or a Liability

Once a lawsuit or EEOC charge is filed, the Bullard-Plawecki personnel file becomes the baseline evidentiary record. Every document in the file, and every document conspicuously absent from it, will be examined. Discrepancies between what the file contained before litigation and what the employer claims in discovery are a standard plaintiff's attorney tool for attacking credibility.

The spoliation risk is concrete. If an employer updates, supplements, or removes documents from the file after litigation has begun or after a reasonable person would anticipate litigation, those changes can be characterized as destruction or alteration of evidence. Michigan courts take spoliation seriously, and the consequences can include adverse jury instructions, sanctions, or dismissal of defenses.

The correct approach once litigation is reasonably anticipated is straightforward: preserve the file exactly as it exists, issue a litigation hold in writing, and consult employment counsel before touching the file. Do not add the final performance review you forgot to include. Do not remove the disciplinary record that looks bad in context. Leave the file exactly where it is.

Proactive file hygiene before any dispute is the most effective risk management step available. For guidance on how to terminate an employee without triggering a lawsuit, including documentation practices that hold up in subsequent litigation, and for a detailed breakdown of responding to an EEOC charge once one is filed, those articles address the related decisions you will face once a dispute materializes. Document everything contemporaneously, date all entries, and never backfill a personnel file after a termination decision has been made.

Where Companies Go Wrong: The Five Most Common Compliance Failures

These failures appear repeatedly in Michigan employment disputes involving personnel file claims. If your current practices include any of them, correct them before a request arrives.

1. Treating a verbal request as sufficient. An employee asks verbally for their file. The employer responds verbally. The employee then submits a written request two weeks later. The employer has already lost response time and has no documentation of the earlier exchange. The written request is what starts the clock.

1. Producing the entire file without an exemption review. Handing over the complete file without reviewing it for exempt materials can mean inadvertently disclosing criminal investigation notes, reference letters, or confidential informant information. That disclosure cannot be undone, and in some circumstances it creates separate liability.

1. Assuming $200 is the worst-case outcome. Employers who ignore a request because the statutory fine seems small are not accounting for attorney fee-shifting or the evidentiary consequences in subsequent litigation. The $200 is the floor, not the ceiling.

1. Modifying the file around a termination. Adding documents after a termination decision, or removing documents before a request is fulfilled, creates spoliation risk. Both directions of modification are problematic. The file should reflect what existed contemporaneously.

1. Failing to maintain a request log. If the employer has no documentation of prior requests and responses, it cannot prove it complied, it cannot invoke the two-request-per-year cap as a defense, and it cannot demonstrate what was produced versus withheld. A log is not optional.

For a related look at documentation failures that create legal exposure across HR functions, see our article on common employee handbook mistakes that create legal exposure. The same pattern of underdocumentation that causes handbook problems tends to show up in personnel file management.

A Pre-Request Audit Checklist for Michigan Employers

Do not wait for a written request to assess whether your file practices are compliant. Use this checklist now, before any request arrives.

• Designate a single point of contact for all personnel file requests. Every request should route through one person who knows the statutory requirements and can manage the response timeline.
• Establish a written request log template that captures the date the request was received, the employee's name, what was produced, what was withheld, the exemption basis for any withheld documents, and the date of production.
• Audit active files to confirm that all documents are dated and signed contemporaneously. If a document is undated, that creates credibility questions about when it was actually created.
• Identify and separately store exempt materials such as reference letters, pre-employment background check results, and criminal investigation records. Segregating exempt materials in advance reduces the risk of accidental disclosure and speeds up the review process when a request arrives.
• Confirm your response time protocol does not exceed seven business days. Map out who does what, in what order, so the process does not stall at a bottleneck.
• Train managers explicitly that no document may be added to a personnel file after a termination decision has been made without prior approval from employment counsel.

A clean, well-organized personnel file is the employer's first line of defense in any employment dispute. It demonstrates contemporaneous documentation, good-faith recordkeeping, and an absence of post-hoc modification. That is not just a compliance benefit; it is a litigation advantage.

If you are unsure whether your current file practices satisfy Michigan's requirements under the Bullard-Plawecki Act, the time to find out is before a request lands on your desk. Review your Michigan employment law obligations and consult employment counsel before a request arrives, not after.

Employers who discover compliance gaps after a request is received are in reactive mode with less leverage and less time. Beckett and Moss works with Michigan employers to assess personnel file practices, establish compliant request protocols, and respond correctly when a request or claim is already in motion. The cost of a compliance review is a fraction of the cost of a contested non-compliance claim. That is the decision in front of you.

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This article is educational and does not constitute legal advice for your specific situation. Michigan employers with questions about Bullard-Plawecki compliance, personnel file practices, or related employment law obligations should consult qualified employment counsel. Laws and their interpretation can change; verify current requirements with legal counsel before implementing any compliance program.