Both Sides Setting Terms of Clinton Suit Settlement

WASHINGTON — One day after the Supreme Court cleared the way for a trial in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual-harassment lawsuit, attorneys for both President Clinton and the former Arkansas state worker were talking about the broad outlines of a settlement.

While the two parties were not negotiating directly, in public and private comments the lawyers set out the terms of an agreement that could end the dispute.

Both sides said that they see advantages to settling soon instead of moving toward a long, expensive and embarrassing trial.

“This case has settlement written over it,” said an attorney familiar with the situation. “Both sides have left room in their statements so far that would allow them to find common ground.”

The president’s lawyer, Robert S. Bennett, despite taking a thumping from the high court, has been the more adamant party in setting conditions for a settlement. Clinton will neither admit to wrongdoing nor pay money to Jones, he said.

“The president did nothing wrong,” he said in a televised interview.

However, legal sources said Wednesday that Clinton would be willing to issue a statement attesting to Jones’ good character and asserting that she did nothing improper. Clinton may also be agreeable to admitting that the two met at a Little Rock hotel, although he has no recollection of it, the sources said.

Meanwhile, the lawyers for Jones repeatedly have asserted their client is not seeking money, but rather wants her good name and reputation restored.

“The essential feature of any settlement would have to be a statement that would redeem her reputation, and that is non-negotiable,” attorney Gilbert Davis said in a TV interview Wednesday. “The particular language is something we could talk about but it would have to include that.”

While Davis and fellow Jones attorney Joseph Cammarata have been talking in public about the terms of a settlement, they said that the next step is up to Clinton’s lawyers.

“I’m not going to propose something for them,” Cammarata said. “It’s for them now to come to us with some kind of proposal.”

Money could still prove a sticking point, as it was apparently three years ago.

A source close to Clinton’s legal team said that Jones’ lawyers have been “asking for megabucks, and that is unacceptable.”

Clinton’s legal team, which is being supported by insurance payments, could afford to pay a money settlement to Jones, but the president’s advisors said that such a payment would be seen wrongly by the public as an admission of guilt.

However, Clinton’s lawyers have not ruled out the possibility of paying some legal fees and expenses incurred by Jones’ two lawyers, the sources said. One suggested a payment in the range of $50,000 to $100,000.

The outlines of a settlement could be along the lines of a proposed agreement that collapsed shortly before Jones filed her lawsuit in 1994. In that proposal, Clinton would have stated his regret for any untrue assertions casting doubt on Jones’ good character.

But his lawyers balked at having the president adopt a phrase suggested by Jones’ lawyers that Clinton would “have no further comment on my own conduct or my prior statements.”

Sources said that the White House still objects to the president making any reference to his own conduct on grounds that such a reference could raise questions in the minds of the public.

Davis said that a public statement made by a White House aide in 1994 delivered a final fatal blow to the out-of-court negotiations. The aide told reporters that Jones was delaying the filing of her complaint because she realized that she had a weak case and that some family members were opposed to the lawsuit, both of which were untrue, Davis said.

Since a settlement is far from assured, both sides are also preparing for the next round of litigation.

Clinton’s lawyers are expected to file motions in Little Rock urging that the lawsuit be dismissed for failing to state a cause of action. In most such cases, this step would have been taken three years ago, soon after the lawsuit was filed.

In this case, however, the president’s lawyers were able to use his possible immunity as chief executive to delay the case. That fight, although unsuccessful, took up three years--and pushed the case out of the headlines until after the 1996 presidential election.

Now, Clinton’s lawyers can challenge the legal basis for the lawsuit.

Jones did not file a simple sexual-harassment suit, instead relying on a Reconstruction-era statute that authorizes damage claims against state officials who violate someone’s constitutional rights while acting “under color of law.”

This approach complicates the case and could lead to its dismissal, legal experts said.

The president’s lawyers “have a plausible argument [for dismissal]. It’s certainly debatable,” said Duke University law professor William Van Alstyne, a constitutional expert who joined the Supreme Court fight on Jones’ side.

Typically, a person who suffers sexual harassment on the job would sue under the federal anti-discrimination law. Title 7 of the law makes it illegal to discriminate against an employee based on race or sex, and the courts have interpreted sexual harassment as a type of sex discrimination.

However, the federal law requires victims to file complaints within six months of the harassment.

“The filing period is short because it’s much easier to get to the truth of the charges when the events are recent,” said University of Chicago law professor David Strauss. “You don’t want these complaints to be postponed for several years.”

But Jones has said that she decided to sue Clinton in 1994 only after she read an account in the American Spectator, a conservative magazine, quoting an Arkansas trooper as telling of a woman named “Paula” who was “available to be Clinton’s girlfriend.”

Angry and humiliated, Jones said that she sued to set the record straight.

However, her decision to sue came nearly three years after she allegedly was escorted to Gov. Clinton’s room in the Excelsior Hotel, where he allegedly dropped his pants and asked her to perform a sex act.

As a result, her attorneys were forced to claim that her constitutional rights were violated by state officials, namely Clinton and trooper Danny Ferguson, who she says escorted her to the room.

Since the suit was filed in 1994, law professors around the nation have conducted lively debates on whether the story told by Jones, even if entirely true, would be considered a violation of her constitutional rights.

Strauss, who filed a Supreme Court brief on Clinton’s behalf, said that he doubts the claim should be upheld. “It’s not clear to me this misconduct she alleges would violate the Constitution. If it is, every act of sexual harassment, even if it happens just once, would be a constitutional violation,” he said.

Van Alstyne said that he would lean toward allowing the claim to be tried. “Some of what she alleges is sufficiently lurid and you know what I’m referring to. If that happened, it would make for a viable claim,” he said.

But other legal experts think that the public spotlight on the case would make it exceedingly difficult for a judge to throw it out now.

U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright agreed three years ago to shield Clinton from answering to the complaint until he leaves office, only to be rebuked by both the U.S. Court of Appeals in St. Louis and a unanimous Supreme Court.

“I think she will be very gun-shy about delaying this case any further,” said University of Illinois law professor Ronald Rotunda, who has also sided with Jones. “At this point, she doesn’t have much option other than letting the case proceed.”