Kirkland Crawford | Detroit Free Press

Two former Detroit Lions employees have filed a lawsuit against the team, claiming racial and age discrimination ultimately led to them getting fired.

In a suit filed in Wayne County Circuit Court, Michael Richardson and Robert Yanagi have filed suit against the Lions and the NFL, saying they were terminated in January "without justification."

The Free Press reached out to the Lions for comment, but the team had not responded as of midday Tuesday.

The lawsuit says that Richardson, a 52-year-old African-American, and Yanagi, a 58-year-old man of Japanese decent, were the team's assistant video director and video operations director.

The plaintiffs claim that when Bob Quinn took over as general manager of the Lions in January 2016, Quinn met with Richardson and criticized his work.

On Dec. 10, 2017, RIchardson suffered a shoulder injury at work and filed a workers' compensation claim, according to the lawsuit.

Read more:

Nine days later, Richardson filed a complaint to the team's human resources department over "racist comments by an employee in the Detroit Lions Scouting Department and disparate treatment by an employee in the Detroit Lions Team Operations Department," according to the lawsuit. The filing also states Yanagi asked this same employee in the scouting department to stop joking about race.

Later in the month, Richardson met with Quinn, who, according to the suit, "acknowledged Richardson's complaint of race discrimination," but then "raised concerned about Richardson's work performance."

The suit states that Richardson's work evaluation score given to Quinn was 2.8 out of 5, with one of the employees Richardson complained about giving him a score of 1 in every category.

Yanagi also reported to human resources that Quinn "treated him differently because of his race and therefore he was concerned about losing his job."

The filing says both Richardson and Yanagi were fired in January. The lawsuit claims Richardson was fired because of "his age, race and/or in retaliation for his workers' compensation claim and/or complaint about race discrimination," and Yanagi for age, race, his complaint or for supporting Richardson.

It is not clear when the lawsuit was filed. The attorneys for Richardson and Yanagi requested an April 5 jury trial.