By Namu Sampath
masslive.com
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Nicholas Hultine, a former Chicopee police officer, and more than 40 other officers will receive portions of a $200,000 legal settlement.
The money is the fruit of a lawsuit alleging Chicopee unfairly paid them while they attended the Police Academy.
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“The case wouldn’t have been able to be brought without Nicholas Hultine,” Jeffrey S. Morneau, the attorney who represented Hultine and the other class-protected plaintiffs, told Judge Thomas H. Townsend at a Tuesday hearing at Hampden Superior Court. “He was integral to this case.”
Last year, Morneau alleged on Hultine’s behalf that the city paid him $4 an hour less than what he was due while at the academy. The complaint was filed in January 2025.
According to the complaint, Hultine was hired by the Chicopee Police Department to a full-time position in June 2022. State law requires officers to attend a training offered by a municipality to help officers get a lay of the land and be brought up to date on policies and procedures.
And, according to that law, those individuals, who are deemed “student officers,” will “be paid the regular wages provided for the position to which he was appointed,” Hultine’s complaint said.
Mark J. Albano, the attorney hired by Chicopee, told Townsend, “I am pleased that 42 student officers will be paid adequately.”
“The city is content with the settlement,” he said.
Townsend said he was familiar with the case and found that the settlement agreement was fair, reasonable and adequate.
Hultine is now an officer with the Southwick Police Department, according to a Facebook post from the department in 2023.
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