Shaw v. Board of Selectmen

Although this action by a former employee of the town of Marshfield was pleaded, in the first line, as an application for mandamus to compel the appointing authority (the board of selectmen) to reinstate him in his position, it is better viewed — as all now seem to agree — as an action testing his right to a hearing before that authority.

George Shaw was a non-civil service, nonunion, at will employee who, commencing in 1983, worked in the town’s purchasing department under the direction of the town administrator (see town charter, art. 4.7.2[3] for that official’s duty). Shaw held the…