A former Seymour detective has until September to argue why a judge shouldn’t rule on his lawsuit before it heads to trial.
Ronald Goodmaster, a former detective sergeant with the Seymour Police Department, filed a federal lawsuit against the town in 2014. He claims age discrimination.
Goodmaster said First Selectman Kurt Miller and the Board of Selectmen took extraordinary steps to block his attempt to stay on the job a year past his 65th birthday, the mandatory retirement age for police officers.
The town’s police commission voted 2 – 1 in September 2012 to let him stay a year longer so he could hit 25 years of service under the state’s municipal employee retirement system.
But the Selectmen, citing an opinion from the town’s attorney, reversed the decision, saying the police commission had overstepped its authority by authorizing a request only the Board of Selectmen has the power to consider.
Goodmaster said the move was part of a larger pattern of harassment and discrimination directed at him by town leaders. They were looking to get back at him for complaining publicly about the department’s management, according to Goodmaster’s court filings.
In addition to Miller, Goodmaster named police commission chairman Lucy McConologue and Seymour Police Chief Michael Metzler as defendants.
Originally a seven-count lawsuit, a lawyer representing the town successfully convinced a federal judge to throw out three of the claims — and part of a fourth.
In April, a lawyer representing the town asked a judge to rule on the case as soon as possible. The town argues Goodmaster simply doesn’t have a case.
The town submitted more than 200 pages of documents to support their defense, including a number of affidavits.
One of the affidavits is from Miller, the First Selectman.
In it Miller says that he ran a simple procedural question about the police commission’s initial move by the town’s lawyer, then was surprised to learn from the lawyer that the commission did not have authority to grant Goodmaster an extra year on the police department.
Miller said the town offered Goodmaster a “special assignment” so he could “fulfill his retirement obligation.”
“The special assignment offered to Plaintiff was more operationally effective for the Department because it would have allowed for the hiring of an additional patrol officer, would have placed another person in management and would have ensured a smooth transition for the detective bureau,” Miller said in his affidavit.
But Goodmaster refused the assignment, so Miller voted against granting him another year on the department when the issue came in front of the Board of Selectmen.
Goodmaster’s lawyer has until Sept. 8 to file a response to the town’s motion for summary judgment.
