In a decision Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court sided with the 40 Gloucester residents who were sanctioned $80,000 for organizing petitions to oust four Gloucester County supervisors from office in 2008.

Members of the “Gloucester 40” had appealed to Virginia’s high court regarding the sanctions levied against them by visiting Circuit Court Judge Westbrook Parker.

The decision voids Parker’s order that the 40 petitioners pay $2,000 each toward defendants’ costs in the unsuccessful petition drive.

In the case of Garr N. Johnson, et al, vs. Gregory Woodard, et al, Justice Leroy F. Millette Jr. declared in his opinion that the 40 residents who collected the necessary signatures to move the recall effort forward were not parties to the removal action and therefore Parker erred in imposing sanctions.

“The petitioners assert that the only parties to the removal action are the Commonwealth, as the moving party, and the supervisors, as responding ...