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

Embattled former Woodstock Village Police Chief Joe Swanson’s appeal of his latest demotion by Municipal Manager Eric Duffy will be heard in Vermont Superior Court at the end of this month.

Judge Kerry Ann McDonald-Cady has scheduled a three-hour in-person hearing on Tuesday June 30 for lawyers representing the Village of Woodstock and Swanson.  It starts at 9 a.m. at the historic Woodstock courthouse.

McDonald-Cady will hear arguments on whether Duffy had proper grounds to seek the demotion of Swanson from village police chief to entry level patrol officer.

The Village Trustees voted 5-0 earlier this year to support Duffy’s decision, but Swanson has appealed the demotion as groundless.  He wants to be reinstated as chief of a department where he has worked for two decades.  Duffy has said he wants Swanson gone.

This marks the second time that the superior court is hearing a demotion appeal from Swanson.  The Village lost the first time a year ago.

Duffy attempted to demote Swanson in 2025.  The Village Trustees heard the appeal during a 14 ½ hour marathon session on March 19, 2025 and later upheld Duffy.

Vermont Superior Court H. Dickson Corbett later ruled the Village Trustees had failed to follow state law and he sent the case back to Woodstock to try to work things out.

Duffy ordered a new demotion of Swanson to patrol officer.  The manager tried to switch it to a dismissal, but the Village Trustees said that was improper while the case was pending.

The Village Trustees had a 14-hour hearing over two days in March and as expected they agreed to support the manager again.  The Trustees have repeatedly ruled against Swanson for the most part, including efforts to get three trustees removed because of conflicts of interests.

Woodstock attorney Linda Fraas, on behalf of Swanson, filed a 126-page legal brief in court rejecting many of the findings by the Trustees in their  ruling, which also was 126 pages.

Fraas later asked the superior court to uphold Swanson’s appeal when the Village of Woodstock failed to file its legal response by the court’s 30-day deadline.

McDonald-Cady ruled this week the superior court will accept the legal brief even though the Village filed it 17 days past its response deadline.

The judge noted she had not ruled on a pending request by the Village for additional time.

“The Village of Woodstock’s delay in filing its brief constitutes excusable neglect such that the motion is granted…” the judge wrote.  She did not elaborate.

McDonald-Cady also rejected a request from the Village to have all the parties meet for a status conference.

“The Village of Woodstock has already filed its brief objecting to Mr. Swanson’s petition.  The Court finds a status conference is unnecessary and instead, a hearing allowing each party to present oral argument is the appropriate next step in this case,” McDonald-Cady wrote.  

The rulings were among eight decisions McDonald-Cady resolved in a 1 ½ page ruling issued on Tuesday.  McDonald-Cady granted three motions and rejected three motions.  She deferred the seventh request and agreed to schedule the hearing for Swanson’s case to be heard.

In a separate ruling, McDonald-Cady also gave the green light to a multi-million dollar civil lawsuit filed by Swanson to resume.

Swanson has sued Duffy, as the municipal manager, Sgt. Chris O’Keeffe, as the interim police chief, former Village Trustee Chair E. Seton McIlroy, who did not seek re-election in March, and both the town and village of Woodstock.  Also named as a defendant in the lawsuit is Burgess Loss Prevention of Lebanon, N.H., which was hired by Duffy to investigate Swanson. 

Swanson first sued the defendants for $5 million after the first demotion hearing.  Fraas said she expected the requested damages to double when the Trustees upheld the second demotion.  Fraas said the total claims will continue to grow as Duffy, as manager, takes more and more adverse actions against the award-winning chief.

The Village had asked the court earlier to put the Swanson civil lawsuit on hold while the two sides battle out the demotion fight.

Fraas, on behalf of Swanson, said late Tuesday afternoon she is pleased that McDonald-Cady said work on the civil lawsuit can resume.

She said she has sent a note to lawyer John Klesch, who represents the village, town, Duffy, O’Keeffe and McIlroy  that Swanson wants to take O’Keeffe’s sworn deposition as early as July 1.  She said she also alerted Andrew Boxer, who is defending Burgess, about the deposition request.

Klesch did not respond to the Vermont Standard for a request for comment on the judge’s rulings.

Boxer has a pending motion seeking to have his client, William Burgess, dropped from the lawsuit.

Several others were named defendants, including four village trustees, but Judge Corbett dropped them from the lawsuit because of a lack of involvement.  The judge kept McIlroy, the chair, in the lawsuit.

Duffy hired Burgess to do one of three investigations of Swanson.  The Vermont State Police and the Vermont Criminal Justice Council had both cleared Swanson.

Duffy asked Burgess to focus his interviews with employees about Swanson’s management style.  Several village police and town emergency dispatchers expressed concern that Swanson had a messy office, did not keep his hair neat, and as chief would not tell his underlings where he was going and when he was  coming back.  They also complained he did not always answer his cellphone when out of the office.

Duffy used much of the 17-page Burgess report filed in December 2024 to try to demote Swanson.

Fraas, on behalf of Swanson said she filed her 126-page appeal on April 16 and the Village had 30 days under the law to file a rebuttal.

Klesch, on behalf of the Village, failed to file a timely response to her brief so Fraas asked the court on May 20 to rule in Swanson’s favor.

The judge noted Klesch finally filed one response on June 1 and a corrected version two days later.

Klesch wrote he issued a corrected version after he “found words and text to be corrected, replaced, clarified, supplemented and/or improved.” 

In his 84-page brief Klesch argues that Duffy determined that Swanson had performed his job poorly and violated multiple policies.  Duffy also thought Swanson “engaged in a serious act of insubordination,” Klesch wrote.

He said Swanson showed insubordination when he went to the police station in February 2025 and had contact with employees after being directed by Duffy to stay out of the office. 

Swanson has said he sent a note to O’Keeffe to say he needed to stop by to pick up some items and the acting chief said it was acceptable.

Duffy has maintained that Swanson has abandoned his employment and replaced him.

Swanson’s lawyer argues her client had serious back surgery and had been out on worker’s comp when Duffy cut him loose.  Swanson is still recovering from his medical leave.

There is a court order in place blocking Woodstock from naming a new police chief while the case is resolved.

Klesch said should the judge’s on-the-record review of the Trustee’s decision lead the court to reverse or vacate the findings, Woodstock wants to be further heard and be allowed time “to acquire and present evidence on the subject of whether reinstatement would be an appropriate remedy,” he wrote.