Prince William schools superintendent Steve Walts to retire in June 2021

Former Prince William County Public Schools superintendent Dr. Steven Walts.

Lawyers for the Prince William County Public Schools superintendent explored a settlement in a defamation case by the former chair of the School Board, but are still inching toward trial.

In documents filed in Prince William County Circuit Court in late March, attorneys for Superintendent Steven Walts said they had explored “whether settlement discussions would be fruitful” with former board chair Ryan Sawyers.

The information came in a motion for Walts to file a new answer to the $2.3 million defamation lawsuit Sawyers filed. Walts’ attorneys said he was served with a lawsuit missing one page and because of the clerical error his initial response was inadequate.

Sawyers is suing Walts over comments the superintendent made in a video posted on Twitter last May. In the video, Walts said Sawyers and others “have chosen to launch a partisan and personal attack on me. As part of their attacks, they have chosen to smear and slander me for purely political purposes. While I am not concerned about these attacks directed at me, I am significantly concerned they have chosen to bully and attack PWCS students online. Their actions reflect their character.”

Sawyers has said the comments in the video, which had more than 29,000 views before being taken down, were “false and defamatory” and they “damaged Sawyers’ personal and professional reputation by alleging conduct that is reprehensible to him as a former school board chairman, businessperson, coach and father.”

Although the two sides have not reached a settlement, they did agree in March on guidelines for handling potentially sensitive documents, which may keep them from public view. The agreement is still pending approval by a judge.

The agreement came before Sawyers’ attorneys served subpoenas on the board and current chair Babur Lateef. 

The agreement would allow either side in the case to label documents as “confidential” or “attorney’s eyes only” to keep them from being publicly available. The agreement said either Walts or Sawyers can mark documents as such and can object to the other party’s designation. If either party objects on certain documents, a hearing would determine their status.

To receive the designation, a document must contain highly sensitive personal information, highly sensitive personnel information or confidential business practices. Examples included in the agreement were names of minor children, medical or psychiatric information and personnel performance or discipline.

Judge James Willett granted Walts’ request to file an amended answer, which has already been submitted and briefly expands on some of his defense claims.

One of Walts’ expanded defense claims is that Sawyers had engaged in conduct online that was spreading “false and defamatory” statements about Walts and “damaged [Walts’] personal and professional reputation by alleging conduct that is reprehensible to him,” repeating nearly verbatim Sawyers’ claims in the lawsuit. 

The legal definition of Walts’ claim is the “doctrine of unclean hands,” which says plaintiffs cannot seek damages for similar actions they have also committed. For example, if a party has made defamatory statements about a person and the second person responds in-kind, under the law the first person cannot then seek damages.

Walts tried to have the lawsuit tossed out, saying the statements were opinions and not allegations of fact, but a judge ruled in November that the case could move to trial.

The subpoenas seek various forms of communication between Walts and the School Board prior to and after the video was published and any information on who had access to the @SuperPWCS Twitter and Instagram accounts and all direct messages sent or received on the account regarding Sawyers or Guy Morgan, a Brentsville resident who complained about Walts’ messages on the account.

Sawyers was elected at-large chair of the board in 2015 and has been feuding with Walts since he called on the superintendent to resign in the aftermath of an August 2017 car wreck. Walts denied any wrongdoing and refused to step aside. Last year, Walts announced he would retire when his contract expires July 1.

The May 7 video was posted after the school system received complaints regarding more than 20,000 private Twitter messages between Walts and students. Walts, in taking down the Twitter account, said other school system employees had access to the account and it wasn’t a personal account.

The school division paid $110,776 to law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP for an investigation into complaints about Walts’ use of the account. The results of the investigation were presented to the board in July, but the presentation remains confidential because it involves a personnel matter.

No trial date has been set. 

Nolan Stout covers Prince William County. Reach him at nstout@insidenova.com or @TheNolanStout on Facebook and Twitter.

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