Woodstock officials are seeking to block efforts by demoted former Police Chief Joe Swanson to amend his $5 million lawsuit against the municipality and village officials, while also adding the acting police chief as a defendant.
In one of their latest legal filings, the village and the other defendants are asking the Vermont Superior Court in Woodstock to prohibit Swanson from changing his initial lawsuit.
The defendants maintain that Swanson proposes to add “claims which are futile as a matter of law and because the plaintiff has not briefed the necessity of proposed amendments.”
Swanson, through his lawyer Linda Fraas, had asked on May 29 to amend the claims in the initial lawsuit and to allow Sgt. Chris O’Keeffe, the acting chief, to be added as a defendant.
Defense lawyer John Klesch said in his written response that Swanson wants to drop the village and town for a claim of tortious interference and instead name Municipal Manager Eric Duffy, O’Keeffe, and the five Village Trustees.
Klesch claims Vermont law does not permit a claim against the Village Trustees, the manager, or O’Keeffe for tortious interference based on the facts that Swanson has claimed.
Swanson also requested to amend a claim under the Fair Employment Practices Agencies (FEPA) to add Duffy and the five trustees — chair Seton McIlroy, vice chair Jeffrey Kahn, and members Brenda Blakeman, Frank Horneck, and Lisa Lawlor.
Klesch claimed Fraas had also failed to provide proper legal briefing in her filing of that claim.
“While leave to amend pleadings is to be allowed when justice so requires, Defendants cannot reasonably assess whether justice requires the amendment, and there is a lack of any justification for the court’s review such that it may be deemed inadequately briefed,” Klesch wrote.
Meanwhile, Fraas has filed a motion asking the judge to allow disclosure of confidential mediation communications in light of the defendant’s motion to dismiss.
Swanson is fighting Duffy’s order demoting the chief to patrol officer. He appealed to the five Village Trustees, who conducted a 14.5-hour marathon hearing on March 19. They subsequently upheld their manager’s decision.
Judge H. Dickson Corbett issued a preliminary injunction this month blocking Duffy and the village from hiring or appointing a permanent police chief and gave both sides time to file more legal arguments.
Corbett said he needed more information before he could rule on whether Swanson had been improperly removed by Duffy and the five Village Trustees.
For more on this story, please see our June 26 edition of the Vermont Standard.
