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This year, Harris Butler chairs the Virginia Continuing Legal Education's Employment Committee, and, on May 6 (Richmond) and May 13 (Fairfax), he moderated the 19th Annual Virginia Employment Law Update and presented the annual case law update with Eddie Isler of Isler, Dare, Ray, Radcliffe & Connolly, P.C. Harris and Eddie reviewed U.S. Supreme Court, Fourth Circuit, and Virginia federal and state law developments for other employment law practitioners.

Noted trends were more summary judgment reversals at the Fourth Circuit and continued support of the courts for retaliation claims. Also noted was the Fourth Circuit's class certification for a racially hostile environment as well as disparate treatment and impact classes in Brown v. Nucor, 576 F. 3d 149 (4th Cir. 2009).

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act offered relief from the earlier adverse Supreme Court Ledbetter v. Goodyear ruling on the timing of filing pay discrimination claims, but the Supreme Court's decision in Gross v. FBL Servs, 129 S. Ct. 2343 (2009) increasing the burden of proof to age discrimination claimants and certiorari grant in Staub v. Proctor Hosp., 2010 U.S. LEXIS 3333 (April 19, 2010) to review the "cat's paw" proof model (where another person with discriminatory animus is claimed to influence the decision-maker) is troubling.

"Beware, there seems to be a recent trend of 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decisions going the wrong way for employees these days,' says Butler.