(6 of 7)
For all the dust and innuendo kicked up by the Jones filing, it had an important technical purpose: to get the case in front of an Arkansas jury. The Jones team's problem, it would seem, is that all the obstruction and suppression in the world won't help it if it fails to prove that Jones suffered from her alleged encounter with Clinton. Her lawyers argue they don't have to prove Jones suffered tangible damages to prevail--they could conceivably persuade a jury that Clinton created an environment in which women were rewarded for kissing and not telling, and that Jones suffered for not playing along. And they might have to make such an argument because the claim that Jones suffered psychological and economic harm from her encounter with Clinton remains the weakest part of her case.
Those claims are bolstered only slightly by the filing, which includes a psychological evaluation performed last month, seven years after the encounter, that found the hotel incident and "ensuing events" inflicted great mental damage on Jones. The "ensuing events"--national TV, insults, publication of nude photographs of Jones--may have been more painful than her 20-min. encounter with Clinton, but the President can't be held liable for them. Though much of her case rests on the employment repercussions Jones says she suffered for refusing Clinton--failing to receive promotions and raises, a demotion while on maternity leave--she was unfamiliar with her own employment record at her deposition. And that record doesn't support her claim. She received, according to Bennett's statement of her job history, every merit and cost of living raise she was eligible for, and left her state job of her own volition. She was reassigned after a maternity leave but to a similar data-entry job at the same rate of pay. Jones' team has not effectively disputed this. She alleges on-the-job insults--not getting flowers on Secretary's Day, being moved to a desk closer to her boss--but the slights "don't rise to the level of an adverse action under the law," says Lynne Bernabei, a respected employment-rights litigator in Washington. "The guy may have acted boorishly, but that's not sexual harassment. The law is not there to control behavior, it's there to protect people in their jobs."
Even if a jury finds that Jones suffered adverse job consequences, "she's got a big hole in her case," says Bernabei. "She still has not shown any connection between what happened to her [on the job] and Clinton." Nowhere in the record do any people in Jones' office say they knew of her encounter with Clinton or did anything to her because Clinton or an agent of his told them to. Jones' lawyers concede as much in the filing, which concludes only that "a jury could reasonably draw the inference that Mr. Clinton caused Plaintiff to suffer adverse employment action." In fact, that would not be an inference. It would be a guess.