Back in May, we noted the pitched battle between the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the defense bar over whether the commission is permitted to sue on behalf of alleged victims of discrimination who are not identified by the agency during its investigation or conciliation of an underlying administrative charge. As two recent cases show, the battle continues.

In EEOC v. United Parcel Service Inc., the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois reversed course from a pair of prior rulings and held that, to satisfy federal pleading standards, EEOC is not required to plead detailed factual allegations regarding the individual claims of every potential class member.

The holding prompted John Hendrickson, EEOC's regional attorney in Chicago, to remark that the "decision probably marks the end of an already faltering trend in the defense of employment discrimination cases" to argue that EEOC cannot seek relief for victims of bias in class cases unless the claimant was individually identified during the administrative process and before the class lawsuit was filed.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, however, did not go quite as far as the Northern District of Illinois in blessing EEOC's practice of bringing class enforcement actions on behalf of unnamed claimants. Instead, in EEOC v. Original Honeybaked Ham Company of Georgia Inc., that court ruled that the commission may sue on behalf of unidentified claimants when the agency's description of the alleged conduct, the harasser, and the location of the alleged conduct during the administrative process provides the company with sufficient information to uncover all potentially aggrieved individuals.

Citing a lack of controlling precedent on the issue in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, the District of Colorado did, however, expressly reject the Eighth Circuit's holding in EEOC v. CRST Van Expedited Inc. that EEOC is required to exhaust its investigation and conciliation obligations as to each claimant before filing class litigation against an employer. It'll be interesting to see where the issue goes from here.

Other recent EEO developments include:

• The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to review whether Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act's retaliation provision and similarly worded statutes require a plaintiff to prove "but-for" cause or simply mixed-motive causation.

• The Eleventh Circuit's holding that, because the Age Discrimination in Employment Act requires evidence of "but-for" causation, the "cat's paw" method of proof laid out by the Supreme Court in Staub v. Proctor Hospital is unavailable in ADEA cases.

• The Third Circuit's ruling that there is no "permanency" aspect--or a consideration of whether the nature of alleged sexual harassment reasonably should have made an employee aware of the need to assert her rights--to a continuing violation analysis in a Title VII hostile work environment case.