Everett Chamberlain of Windsor was part of a group of Windsor residents who successfully sued the town in 2007 over its rejection of a Right-to-Know request. Chamberlain, who represented himself in court, helped disclose documents that led to the resignation of the town’s long time tax collector.
Everett Chamberlain is not a lawyer, he’s an electrician.
He couldn’t afford a lawyer in 2007 when he and a group of residents sued the town of Windsor for refusing a right-to-know request for town tax records. So Chamberlain did what is allowed under state law in these cases: He represented himself in superior court and argued the tax collector’s records were public documents.
The judge quickly sided with Chamberlain and ordered Windsor to produce the records and pay 10 residents $180.32 to defray the costs of having to bring the court action.
“I’ll admit, I was intimidated. No question about it,” Chamberlain said in an interview this week. “But I knew we had them.”
The town’s legal counsel told Chamberlain a few days before the hearing that the records were available.