Clinton Team Fights Jones’ Coercion Claim

Presenting new arguments in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment case, President Clinton’s lawyers said Friday that the former Arkansas state employee has failed to allege that any “force or coercion” was used against her, a circumstance they said was necessary to support her claim that her constitutional rights were violated.

In papers filed in federal court in Little Rock, Ark., where Jones’ lawsuit originated in 1994, Clinton’s attorneys also sought to head off widespread efforts by Jones’ lawyers to interview state troopers and other women in Arkansas.

Robert S. Bennett, the president’s lead attorney, urged U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright to demand that laywers pursue “an orderly, phased plan” of further fact-finding by both sides rather than the far-reaching intentions announced by Jones’ lawyers to pursue rumors and allegations that Clinton sought personal relationships with a number of women.

Joseph Cammarata and Gilbert K. Davis, who are representing Jones in the case, have said they want to establish “a pattern of conduct” by then-Arkansas Gov. Clinton to help persuade jurors that Jones’ claim of lewd conduct on his part was truthful.

Whether Wright will confine initial fact-finding to what Bennett has called “the core issue” of the lawsuit--Clinton’s alleged actions on May 8, 1991, in a Little Rock hotel room--will be debated by the lawyers from each side at a hearing Friday in Wright’s courtroom.

Jones has claimed that Clinton crudely propositioned her after an Arkansas state trooper escorted her to Clinton’s room during an exposition at the Excelsior Hotel, where she was staffing a state booth.

Clinton’s latest court filing, which was made available in Washington, contends that Jones exaggerated the harm she suffered from the alleged incident by claiming in her lawsuit that she not only suffered from sexual harassment but that her constitutional right of privacy was violated.

Although Clinton has “adamantly denied” that he committed any improper act, his attorneys said that even for the sake of argument, Jones’ claims would not meet this constitutional standard because no “severe physical force . . . or some other egregious circumstance” was alleged.

“No such aggravating factors are presented here,” Clinton’s court papers said. “The complaint alleges minimal physical contact between Gov. Clinton and plaintiff.”

Even Jones’ claim that a state trooper summoned her to Clinton’s room does not demonstrate that force was involved, the president’s lawyers said. “There is no allegation that he [the trooper] brandished a firearm or threatened plaintiff with it,” they added, nor did Clinton use “power vested in him by the state to induce or coerce plaintiff to come to the room.”

Neither is any proof offered that a single act as alleged by Jones, abandoned when it was rejected as unwelcome, had any impact on her state job, according to Clinton’s filing. Such proof would be needed to show sexual harassment in the workplace, his lawyers said.

Although Clinton was the highest state official, Jones “does not and cannot point to a single factual allegation that as governor, the defendant made any such statements to anyone in a position to affect plaintiff’s employment status,” Clinton’s filing concluded.

Jones’ $700,000 damage suit, filed in May 1994, is only now approaching trial because Clinton’s lawyers had won delays based on claims that a sitting president should be immune from civil court action.

However, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in May that even a president is not shielded by the Constitution from answering a civil complaint arising from his personal conduct.