Windsor Superior Court Judge H. Dickson Corbett issued a ruling this month preventing the Village of Woodstock from hiring a new police chief.

In his Aug. 7 ruling , Corbett signaled that the court likely will ultimately rule in favor of the former police chief, Joe Swanson, in his $5 million civil lawsuit against the village.

Swanson sued the village in early May after the municipal manager, Eric Duffy, and the Board of Village Trustees demoted Swanson from police chief to police officer. At the heart of his lawsuit, Swanson claimed that village trustees did not follow state law , by establishing proper cause, when they removed him from office.

When Swanson filed the suit, he also asked the court to step in and offer a preliminary injunction, an intervention that would stop the vil

See Full Page