The State Treasurer’s workplace has formally notified the Superior Courtroom of its enchantment to their resolution to reinstate ousted Hashish Management Fee Chair Shannon O’Brien.
O’Brien was all of a sudden eliminated from her publish with out rationalization in 2023. A yr later she was fired from her job over alleged improprieties on the CCC after an investigation by State Treasurer Deb Goldberg.
The choice was challenged in Suffolk Superior Courtroom and, earlier this month, Choose Robert Gordon ordered the ousted chair returned to her publish after discovering her removing “was not supported by substantial evidence.”
The Treasurer’s workplace declined to touch upon the most recent court docket submitting as court docket proceedings proceed. A keep requested by the Treasurer forward of her enchantment has up to now prevented O’Brien’s return to work.
Final week, attorneys from the state Lawyer Normal’s workplace, talking on behalf of the Treasurer, instructed the state’s appeals court docket that O’Brien must be saved off the job because the appeals course of performs out, “to avoid serious disruption to the ongoing work of the Cannabis Control Commission.”
In accordance with attorneys for the Treasurer, “the Superior Court has committed reversible errors” in ordering O’Brien to return to her job. They are saying that the usual for removing the decrease court docket utilized is “overly stringent” and never supported by the statute which gave Goldberg the power to nominate and take away the chair.
A spokesperson for O’Brien instructed the Herald that the chair might have been at her seat in the course of the CCC’s common assembly final week, and that she is trying ahead to returning to work after two years of combating to clear her identify.
“Despite Treasurer Goldberg’s continued use of taxpayer dollars to fund her continued lawsuit against Chair O’Brien that was proven to be ‘built on a house of cards’ in the findings by Superior Court Judge Robert Gordon, Chair O’Brien is respectful of the appeals process and will await the appeals court ruling as regards to her return to the CCC,” the spokesperson mentioned.
Attorneys for O’Brien — the plaintiff within the enchantment — instructed the appeals court docket that their lower-court colleague had already made clear that the state has proven no trigger to delay the chair’s return, and that the appeals court docket ought to attain the identical conclusion.
“After denying Plaintiff a public hearing, and then attempting to seal the evidence — all the while trying to destroy Plaintiff’s reputation — Defendant refuses to accept the reality that she does not have the grounds to remove Plaintiff,” they wrote.
A CCC spokesperson mentioned the fee couldn’t remark because the appeals course of performs out.
