EEOC Bulldozering Means Genuine Victims Of Discrimination May Get Their Cases Thrown Out With All The Rest
Federal judges keep tossing the EEOC and its lawsuits out of court. From the WSJ:

The Obama Administration's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has made no secret of its willingness to invent new antidiscrimination law. So let's hear it for the courts, which have delivered some stinging rebukes recently to the agency's extralegal crusades.

Start with EEOC v. CRST Van Expedited, in which the agency accused the Iowa trucking company of sexual harassment against women and a "sexually hostile working environment." Last month, after six years of litigation, U.S. district judge Linda Reade dismissed the case and awarded $4.7 million in attorney's fees and out-of-pocket expenses to CRST--one of the biggest sanctions in the agency's history.

Pity it wasn't a larger fine. According to Judge Reade, the agency dragged its feet on depositions, didn't properly investigate the individual claims and failed to conciliate with CRST before suing. The latter is especially worrisome, since the EEOC is legally mandated to arbitrate antidiscrimination claims first and sue as a last resort. The EEOC says it's considering its "next steps" in the case.

Pre-suit procedures also came under scrutiny in EEOC v. Bloomberg, in which the agency accused the media company of "demoting and reducing the pay" of 35 women "after they announced their pregnancies and after they took maternity leave." Yet a prior class-action lawsuit had been dismissed after the court discovered Bloomberg pays pregnant women relatively more than other employees who took similarly long leaves of absence, and that it doesn't reduce their responsibilities.

On Monday, U.S. district judge Loretta Preska of New York dismissed the case (with the exception of a single litigant) and explained that the government must investigate individual claims of discrimination before suing, as if that's something that should require explaining.