A Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that state Treasurer Deborah Goldberg unlawfully fired Shannon O’Brien as chair of the Cannabis Control Commission and ordered that O’Brien immediately be reinstated to the job.

Goldberg suspended O’Brien as the commission’s chairperson in September 2023. She fired her in September 2024 after considering two outside investigations and about 19 hours of private meetings held last summer.

O’Brien contested Goldberg’s claims of “gross misconduct” through Suffolk Superior Court and was successful in her appeal of the treasurer’s firing.

“The question before the Court is not whether [O’Brien] was abrasive, boorish, inconsiderate, ill-tempered, imprudent and/or otherwise unreasonable — either in actuality or in the reasonable estimation of the Treasurer,"

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