A federal judge Wednesday threw out the sex-harassment case filed by former Arkansas state worker Paula Corbin Jones against President Clinton, ending a lawsuit that began as a minor annoyance and evolved into a threat to the Clinton presidency.
The ruling marked a dramatic, if possibly fleeting, upturn in the president’s legal fortunes. Not only does Clinton avoid the prospect of an embarrassing trial beginning May 27, but the decision also may weaken the case of Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr.
With its combination of sexual titillation and political peril, the Jones case has seized the nation’s attention for nearly four years, but the judge said it does not deserve the attention of a jury.
“The governor’s alleged conduct, if true, may certainly be characterized as boorish and offensive,” U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright wrote in her 39-page ruling. Even so, she continued, that does not mean it meets the legal definition of sexual harassment.
Jones “has failed to demonstrate that she has a case worthy of submitting to a jury,” wrote Wright, who was appointed by President George Bush. “The court therefore finds that there are no genuine issues for trial in this case.”
One issue in the case had gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that Clinton could stand trial while in office. If he had, it would have been the first time a sitting president faced off in court against a private citizen.
With worldwide media coverage a certainty, witness after witness would have testified about allegations that while he was Arkansas governor, Clinton summoned Jones to a Little Rock hotel room on May 8, 1991, exposed himself and sought a sex act.
Even with the case dismissed, its consequences are significant. It was Jones’ lawyers who first grilled Clinton about an alleged affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
The lawsuit became a rallying point for the legion of enemies that Clinton has attracted throughout his career. To those adversaries, the Jones case entailed everything they loathed about the president, what they saw as his loose morals, his dishonesty, his slickness.
Clinton supporters viewed the case as epitomizing what First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has called “a vast right-wing conspiracy.” She and others hammered away at what they deemed the suspect motives of the opposition camp.
As Wright’s decision neared, the back and forth reached a strident pitch. The Jones legal team released a series of sensational statements, of questionable reliability and relevance, suggesting that various women had affairs with Clinton or were harassed by him.
The Jones team was visibly stunned Wednesday.
“We’re completely shocked,” admitted Susan Carpenter-McMillan, Jones’ spokeswoman and confidant. “The term `disappointed’ has a whole new meaning in my life today.”
Jones’ lawyers vowed to appeal, though legal experts questioned their chance of success.
Clinton’s team, though clearly jubilant, reacted in a studiously low-key manner.
“Judge Wright should be complimented on her courage to make the right decision notwithstanding all of the political atmosphere surrounding the case,” said Clinton attorney Robert Bennett. “She is right on the law. She is right on the facts. And the opinion speaks for itself.”
The ruling comes almost four years after Jones sued Clinton for “willful, outrageous and malicious conduct” at Little Rock’s Excelsior Hotel. Jones accused Clinton of sexual harassment and assault and said he defamed her by denying it. She also claimed the incident caused her severe distress.
Wright knocked out Jones’ defamation claim last fall, and in February Clinton’s lawyers asked her to throw out the rest of the case. Even if the facts alleged by Jones were true, they asserted, she still did not have a sexual-harassment case.
The judge has now agreed, holding that even if Clinton had made unwanted sexual advances just as Jones described, she had not suffered sufficient harm to recover damages under sexual-harassment law.
Wright also dismissed the claim of “intentional infliction of emotional distress,” saying the alleged encounter “did not result in distress so severe that no reasonable person could be expected to endure it.”
Jones had rested her sexual-harassment claim on two assertions: that Clinton made sex a condition of getting certain job benefits, a claim known as quid pro quo sexual harassment, and that the harassment was so severe it created a hostile work environment.
Few lawyers had given Jones much hope of prevailing on the first claim. She would have had to show that she suffered a tangible job detriment such as a demotion or pay cut, but she alleged none of those things.
“The judge would’ve had to have extended and departed from current law to allow Ms. Jones’ claims to go to trial,” said Washington lawyer Michael Subit. “Some had appropriately described her quid pro quo claim as almost laughable.”
Jones had claimed that after the alleged harassment, her supervisors discouraged her from applying for more attractive jobs at higher pay grades and singled her out for mistreatment, including not sending her flowers on Secretary’s Day.
Wright noted that Jones received regular raises, good evaluations and that her position increased two grades. Her complaints, Wright said, amounted to nothing more than minor personnel matters.
“Although it is not clear why plaintiff failed to receive flowers on Secretary’s Day in 1992, such an omission does not give rise to a federal cause of action in the absence of evidence of some more tangible change in duties or working conditions,” Wright wrote.
On her second claim, Jones maintained that the harassment was so severe it created a hostile and abusive working environment. But it is the exceptional case in which a single incident can create a hostile work environment, Wright said, and this simply was not that case.
She noted that Jones never missed a day of work, never asked to be relieved of delivering items to the governor’s office and never filed a formal complaint or consulted a psychiatrist.
Some lawyers suggested that Wright’s decision to dismiss Jones’ work-environment claim provided her best grounds for appeal.
They said Clinton’s alleged conduct, coupled with his status as governor in relation to Jones’ low rank, should have been enough to get the case to a jury.
Among the most significant consequences of Wright’s ruling may be its effect on Starr’s investigation, which is focusing on whether Clinton sought to cover up an affair with Lewinsky.
That line of inquiry arose after Clinton told Jones’ lawyers under oath last December that he had never had an affair with the former White House intern. Starr immediately began exploring whether that was true and whether Clinton had committed perjury and encouraged Lewinsky to lie about the alleged affair.
Many expect Starr soon to submit his findings to the House for possible impeachment proceedings. But now the significance of Clinton’s alleged actions may fade considerably because the case giving rise to them has been deemed by a judge to be unworthy of consideration by a jury.
William Ginsburg, Lewinsky’s lawyer, was asked what Wright’s ruling means for his client. “I think it means there never was a Paula Jones case,” he said.
Starr promised to push ahead vigorously. “Judge Wright’s ruling today has no effect on our authority, and we will continue working to complete our investigation as expeditiously as possible,” Starr said.
Despite Wednesday’s legal triumph, it would be hard to argue that Clinton paid no price for the Jones lawsuit. It solidified his reputation as a womanizer, and the explosion of the Lewinsky matter in January has further weakened his position in a Congress controlled by Republicans.
Further, Starr is still investigating the Whitewater land deal, the firing of White House Travel Office staffers and the misuse of FBI personnel files.
The impressions the public has formed of Clinton will not change now, said presidential scholar Stephen Hess.
“While the American people supported him as a president, they increasingly believed that he is guilty of these charges,” he said. “I don’t think that is going to change. That’s locked in cement.”
