A Loudoun County Circuit Court judge Monday denied the School Board’s request to throw out a breach of contract lawsuit seeking payment of former superintendent Scott Ziegler’s legal fees.

The case involves a contract between Ziegler and Erin Harrigan of Gentry Locke Rakes and Moore, who represented the former superintendent after he was charged by a special grand jury impaneled in 2022 to investigate the division’s handling of two on-campus sexual assaults committed by the same student.

Lawyers for the School Board argued the three-page engagement letter, which was drafted on the attorney’s letterhead and signed by Ziegler, and a one-page guarantor agreement, signed by Chief Financial Officer Sharon Willoughby on behalf of the School Board are two separate contracts according to Virginia code.

Representing the School Board, Matthew Green of Sands Anderson said during Monday’s hearing that the contract was poorly drafted and didn’t obligate Ziegler to do anything and now Gentry Locke wants the court to fix it. He argued that Gentry Locke failed to plead two necessary elements to establish a breach of guaranty. And he said, because the School Board wasn’t a party to the agreement letter, it did not breach that contract.

“If the drafter fails to include material that is required by Virginia law it is not the job of the court to fix it,” he said.

Green argued the agreement was made between Ziegler and Gentry Locke and that the School Board was not obligate to pay.

Michael Finney, representing Gentry Locke, said the School Board’s argument was a “superficial gotcha argument,” to evade responsibility.

Finney argued that the substance of the contract was controlling and that both parties signing it knew what the intent was.

He pointed to the agreement letter and noted multiple times where it stated the school division, which he argued meant the School Board, would pay Gentry Locke for its services. And argued the guarantor agreement referenced the engagement letter by using terms like “here in” and “above terms” and that the two go together.

Judge James P. Fisher agreed the document should be read together.

“It is the duty of the court to look at all of the documents and see how they dovetail,” he said, in denying the School Board’s request to dismiss the case.

The case will now move forward toward trial, but no date has been set.

Gentry Locke in April filed a breach of contract lawsuit against the School Board seeking payment of $617,000 for its services representing Ziegler since April 2022.

Ziegler was fired after the grand jury released its investigative report. Last September he was found guilty of a misdemeanor charge of retaliating against an employee, two other charges in the case—penalizing an employee for making a court appearance and false publication— were subsequently dismissed.

In March, Ziegler was granted a new trial by Judge Douglas Fleming Jr. after Harrigan argued during a January sentencing hearing that the jury was improperly instructed on one of the elements of misdemeanor retaliation and that the Attorney General’s Office, which prosecuted the case, failed to provide evidence supporting an additional element of the retaliation offense—that it was a knowing violation—and required more specific instructions to the jury.

Fleming postponed sentencing and released an opinion on the case March 6 saying that the jury instruction, which was agreed to by both parties during trial, left out an essential element that was required to prove Ziegler’s prohibited conduct was a crime.

Ziegler’s new trial is scheduled for Feb. 3-7.