A judge has blocked the Village of Woodstock from trying to collect more evidence in an effort to bolster its case to demote Police Chief Joe Swanson to a patrol officer.
Vermont Superior Court Judge H. Dickson Corbet ruled last week that the village is not entitled to seek more information beyond what municipal manager Eric Duffy used as his basis for the demotion at a March hearing.
“Neither additional evidence nor discovery are needed to facilitate ‘on-the-record review’ of the municipal decision…” concerning the demotion, the judge wrote in a decision released Friday.
Judge Corbett wrote that, without expressing an opinion in the case, he said Swanson’s motion to block further digging by the village was granted.
Corbett also added that the village’s effort to file further written comments on the request for more information was denied.
The appeal of Swanson’s demotion will continue. The superior court is planning to hear the merits of the case on Tuesday afternoon Nov. 25.
“Judge Corbett correctly recognized that the village must be prohibited from continuing its fishing expedition for new information to use against Chief Swanson,” according to attorney Linda Fraas, who represents the demoted chief.
“The village’s attempts to seek new evidence — no matter how trivial — to retroactively justify its unlawful demotion of Chief Swanson suggests that it recognizes that it has waged an unwinnable (and expensive) battle against Chief Swanson and that the record as it exists does not support just cause for termination,” she said in an email responding to the Vermont Standard.
Burlington attorney John Klesch, on behalf of the village and Duffy, acknowledged the judge’s ruling and said his clients would move forward.
Klesch told the Vermont Standard that the village will go ahead with the information it had when the Board of Village Trustees heard Swanson’s appeal from Duffy’s action in March.
Fraas said she believes the village and Duffy will do anything to block Swanson from being restored to his old post.
“The village now desperately seeks to prevent Chief Swanson from being reinstated by any means possible — even if it is found to have acted unlawfully in terminating him.”
She added, “We believe that Chief Swanson will ultimately prevail in being reinstated because the purpose of requiring just cause for termination is to protect employees from being removed for arbitrary, unfair, discriminatory, and malicious reasons that do not stand up to legal scrutiny.”
The village had issued a subpoena in late September to the Vermont Criminal Justice Council (VCJC) for records it had concerning Swanson since July 14, 2023, believed to be the day Duffy named him police chief.
Christopher Perkett, associate general counsel for the council, sent a response objecting to the subpoena, and said if there was a record, it was most likely confidential.
Fraas also filed an objection, maintaining the village was trying to pull a fast one on the court.
“It appears the respondent is attempting to circumvent the stay in the companion civil case by conducting discovery and issuing a subpoena for information which, according to the letter from the VCJC, would not be discoverable even if such information existed,” she wrote.
Fraas admitted she would have liked to issue on behalf of Swanson “many subpoenas for information not provided him prior to the quasi-judicial hearing, which would aid in his case…”
She said she had the understanding that the appeal hearing was not the proper forum to do so.
Fraas asked that the court order the village to stop new discovery and trying to use subpoenas to seek new information.
Corbett agreed.
Klesch is due to file a new round of paperwork on the merits of the case this week. Fraas will be given three weeks to respond.
Corbett has said he wants to have the demotion appeal ready for a merits hearing in late November.
Judge Corbett said when the court decides the appeal, it will consider only what happened up to the demotion and not any of the subsequent claims made in filings and affidavits.
Those claims are likely to fall under the $5 million civil lawsuit.
