By Mike Donoghue

A version of this story appeared in the Vermont Standard this week

A Vermont judge has reversed an April ruling by the Woodstock Village Trustees upholding the demotion of Police Chief Joe Swanson, and the case will now go back to the village board.

Superior Court Judge H. Dickson Corbett issued a two-page ruling on Tuesday afternoon, siding with Swanson and signed a separate one-sentence judgment order.

“Based upon the separate written decision of the court, the April 17, 2025 decision of the village trustees is reversed, and the case is remanded to the village trustees for further proceedings,” Corbett wrote in the one-line order.

“It’s a victory,” Swanson’s attorney, Linda Fraas, said Tuesday afternoon. “The judge reversed the demotion and remanded the case back to the village.”

Fraas sent a note to the village after the ruling, asking for Swanson to be reinstated immediately as police chief.

Municipal manager Eric Duffy demoted Swanson to patrol officer — the lowest rank in the department — earlier this year. Swanson appealed to the five village trustees, who heard the appeal in April.

Duffy did not respond to the Vermont Standard on Tuesday before its press deadline.

The Standard learned on Wednesday that Duffy is now one of three finalists for the post of city manager in Montpelier.

Burlington attorney John H. Klesch, who represented the village, offered a brief statement for the Standard: “The Court’s careful analysis of the issues is appreciated. Judge Corbett’s decision sets out guidelines for the Trustees to further review and determine whether Mr. Swanson should serve as Woodstock Police Chief,” Klesch said in an email.

Fraas, however, thinks the judge’s decision is clear.

“Clearly Chief Swanson can no longer lawfully be required to work in his demoted position as patrol officer. The Village also owes him back pay for the time period in which he was illegally demoted and received lesser pay. His current status per the reversal is Chief,” Fraas said in a letter to the lawyer for the village trustees.

Fraas also questioned how Duffy, the village, and its five elected trustees will proceed with potential questions about their legal representation.

She said the village trustees hired Burlington lawyer Brian Monaghan to work with the board before, during and after their 14.5-hour demotion hearing. She said they ended up getting bad legal advice.

“Please advise if you continue to represent the trustees in this matter in light of the extensive inaccurate legal advice previously rendered. As indicated, the demotion was erroneous and reversed,” Fraas wrote in the letter to Monaghan on Tuesday.

Fraas also questioned whether Klesch’s law firm can ethically and lawfully continue to represent Duffy with respect to any process involving the trustees going forward. Fraas asked how it could be done when Klesch is representing both Duffy and the village trustees in a related $5 million unlawful removal lawsuit and the demotion appeal.

Fraas said she has asked Monaghan to outline the plans of the trustees by noon Monday so she can determine if she may need to file a motion with the superior court for any clarification.

Duffy, Interim Police Chief Chris O’Keeffe, trustee chair Seton McIlroy, and the private detective firm that conducted an investigation for the manager are among the named defendants in a $5 million civil lawsuit filed by Swanson in Vermont Superior Court with multiple claims, including unlawful discharge from his job. The case has been on hold while the promotion appeal was litigated.

Fraas believes that if the trustees decide not to reinstate Swanson as chief, they must go through another removal process consistent with the remand.

“The proper protocol in this instance would be to put him on administrative leave with full chief pay pending the outcome. This appears to be an action in futility since the trustees already issued a decision that negates the requirements of just cause when they found that there was no prior notice and there was no one alleged act warranting termination,” Fraas wrote in her letter to Monaghan.

“The trustees clearly knew that there was no just cause when they elected to unlawfully ‘demote’ Chief Swanson rather than terminate him. There is no ‘lesser standard’ of just cause than that required by Vermont precedent,” she said.

“I am extremely confident that Chief Swanson will ultimately prevail in being reinstated pursuant to law and the only question is when this will occur and how much more taxpayer money will be wasted,” Fraas said.

“We ask that the trustees finally do the right thing in the public interest to move on from this unsuccessful unlawful attempt to remove Chief Swanson and allow the restorative process to begin,” she wrote.

The decision

The ruling by Corbett came one week after he heard legal arguments on the merits of the appeal filed by Swanson claiming the demotion by Duffy was unwarranted.

Corbett heard 15 minutes of arguments by each side during the video hearing on Nov. 25. He said the court would take the matter under advisement and “issue a written decision soon.” It only took one week, including a holiday.

The demotion case has generated considerable attention in the Woodstock area since it began. About three dozen computers with an unknown number of interested persons tuned into the video arguments in court. They included local residents, lawyers, media and at least two village trustees.

This week, Corbett noted Woodstock issued a written decision giving reasons for the demotion, but the village trustees failed to evaluate whether “cause” existed to remove the police chief from office. The village reasoned that a “for cause” determination was unnecessary because they were not terminating the police chief’s employment but rather demoting him.

“This reasoning was not correct. Vermont law provides that municipal police chiefs may only be ‘removed’ from office ‘for cause,’ said Corbett, a former longtime Orange County prosecutor.

“Here, the effect of the demotion was to remove the village police chief from office. The village trustees should have determined whether cause existed for this exercise of the removal power,” he said, noting a case involving the Essex Junction village manager trying to get rid of a police officer in 1976.

“Because the trustees did not make their decision according to the correct legal standard, the April 17th decision of the village trustees is reversed, and the case is remanded to the village trustees for further proceedings,” Corbett wrote.

“Both parties have asked the court to consider different remedies. For its part, the village has asked the court to decide whether the reasons given by the village trustees for the demotion were sufficient as a matter of law to establish cause for removal,” he said.

He said the prior cases cited by the village involved decisions by towns using the “the correct legal standard.”

Swanson asked the court to rule that the evidence did not support his removal from office, and requested reinstatement to heading the department.

“Although a court has authority to reinstate police chiefs who have been wrongfully removed…it would be premature for this court to declare an outcome to this case. All this court is deciding is that the trustees must find cause before removing the village police chief from office,” Corbett wrote.

“On remand, the trustees will have to decide whether to pursue further removal proceedings and how to handle petitioner’s employment duties in the meantime. It is important for decisions about police department supervision to be made not by this court, but rather by the village officials who have been elected and appointed for that purpose,” he said.

“Likewise, the court cannot review the sufficiency of the evidence to support any removal decision until after the trustees have made their determinations on remand. The court cannot predict what evidence might be credibly established in the future or review findings and conclusions that have not yet been made,” he said.

Corbett said he would not rule on some other issues, including whether certain individual trustees should be disqualified from participating in future proceedings, and which of the several formulations of the “for cause” standard the trustees should apply to any removal decision they make.

During the legal arguments last week, Klesch, on behalf of the village, had maintained there was “substantial evidence” to support reasons for the demotion.

He said the case was “a limited, on-the-record review of a quasi-judicial body’s determination made after a hearing process.”

Klesch had maintained the court had to side with Woodstock if there is any competent evidence in the record to support the decision by the village trustees to uphold the demotion made by Duffy.

Fraas, fighting for Swanson, disputed the claims made on behalf of the village.

“There is nothing in the record that will support this as a matter of law. This does not require judicial discretion. It just requires applying the law to the facts in this case, which do not support anything that the village is trying to sell,” she told the court.

“And it makes no sense and what has gone on is unconscionable, actually, for this year and that is why we are here today to ask this court to please end this ordeal, reinstate Chief Swanson, let everyone move on,” Fraas said.

The battle between Duffy and Swanson began in October 2024 when the manager put the chief on the sidelines following a motor vehicle complaint involving the chief’s husband. Vermont State Police and the Vermont Criminal Justice Council both cleared Swanson.

Duffy, however, hired a private detective to interview village police employees and town emergency dispatchers to see if they objected to his management style. Based on the interviews in the report, Duffy demoted Swanson. The village trustees heard the appeal in March and voted 5-0 in April to uphold the removal.

Several employees had expressed frustration with the police chief because he had a messy office, wore non-matching socks, and his hair was unkept. The chief also did not tell his employees where he was going when he left the police station and they complained their boss did not always answer his phone.

Swanson has maintained he wants to return to his old job and was never given a chance to correct any possible shortcomings. Duffy has made clear he does not want Swanson running the department and also bypassed other ranks Swanson held — including corporal and sergeant — in demoting to the lowest rank in the department.

Duffy selected Swanson, a former patrol sergeant, after a nationwide search in July 2023. One year later, Duffy issued him a positive work evaluation, but, by October, Swanson was in the doghouse and has yet to get out.