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Pennsylvania Teacher Takes on the President
Christopher Ruddy
November 02, 1997

A Pennsylvania man, outraged that his insurance company was paying Bill Clinton's legal bills in the Paula Jones dispute, fought back and won. The current spin from the White House and major media tells us that "no one cares, no one can change anything" when it comes to the scandals infecting the Clinton administration.
Thomas Flocco disagrees. Flocco, 50, is an elementary school music teacher who was living a happy American life with his wife and two teen-age sons in suburban Philadelphia - with little interest in politics. Then allegations surfaced about Bill Clinton, and Flocco became interested. He devoured James Stewart's book on Whitewater, "Blood Sport," and was surprised how little the media had covered the subject.

He became intensely curious about following the Clinton scandals, and while reading an article about the Jones case noticed that his insurer, State Farm, and another insurer, Chubb, were paying the president's legal bills to defend himself against Jones' sexual harassment suit. "I couldn't believe it," Flocco recalled in a recent interview. "I had been a State Farm policy holder for years - my house, my cars, everything - and they were paying his legal bills."

The facts of the Jones case are well-known. Jones is suing the president for $700,000 for the humiliation she alleges he put her through in 1991 when he dropped his pants and asked her to perform oral sex.

But Flocco had stumbled onto a matter potentially more serious: the highly suspicious financial circumstances surrounding the insurers in that case. Shortly before the Jones incident was said to have taken place, Clinton purchased - for less than $200 - a $1 million homeowner/renter policy from Chubb that included an "umbrella" provision covering the insured against lawsuits for slander and defamation. Clinton bought a second defamation policy from State Farm after the incident allegedly occurred.

Flocco noted that Clinton had not even bothered to file a claim with State Farm for more than a year, a fact that should have immediately disqualified the claim since the insured must file all claims within a matter of months of a covered incident. Flocco says he checked out the issue with his own State Farm agent, who agreed the whole transaction seemed fishy.

Then, armed with suspicions about abuse of power and a possible bribe from insurance companies, Flocco began calling major media outlets. "I called Time, Newsweek, the networks, and they all said, `Yeah, that sounds interesting. We'll have to look into that.' "

Flocco quickly learned no one in the press was really looking into it. One reporter at a leading news magazine was bluntly honest, Flocco recounted. The reporter told him "no way are we going to touch it," but in the same breath recommended that Flocco call Larry Klayman, head of a legal advocacy group called Judicial Watch.

Contacted by Flocco, Klayman immediately saw the merits of Flocco's argument. If Clinton's legal bills were being paid by insurance companies when he was not entitled to coverage, it could be construed as a bribe. Klayman has noted that neither Chubb nor State Farm offers policies covering the specific behavior that Clinton was paid to defend against. Neither insurer issues any protection against sexual harassment because it is considered a deliberate and willful act, somewhat akin to arson by the holder of a fire-insurance policy.

David Duffy, a Chubb spokesman, refused a reporter's request for comment on the Clinton case other than to say that decisions to represent clients in such situations are made on a "case-by-case" basis. Industry sources, however, noted that sexual harassment is not covered by Chubb's personal-liability policies.

DEFENDING CASES

Los Angeles insurance attorney Richard C. Giller, who researched the case for the respected Bureau of National Affairs, found that based on State Farm's policy and Arkansas law there was no obligation for the company to defend cases like Clinton's. He cited a Florida appeals court opinion involving another State Farm case that held that "harassment and discrimination are neither negligent nor accidental," so State Farm did not have to pay for the defense of such acts under a liability policy it had issued.

Both Chubb and State Farm have maintained that they would have denied coverage outright for a sexual harassment charge. What "triggered" their involvement was the finer point of defamation claimed by Jones. Jones claims that after she went public with her allegations, Clinton and his associates defamed her character and reputation.

In a press release, State Farm conceded that the alleged sexual harassment took place prior to Clinton purchasing their policy, and was therefore not covered. However, the defamation allegedly occurred in 1994 while the policy was in effect, thereby triggering the State Farm payout.

Giller maintains that since the defamation claim arose directly from Clinton's alleged sexual harassment, it should all be considered one incident, and neither Chubb nor State Farm are obligated to pay for Clinton's defense.

Fred Joseph, a Maryland attorney whose firm specializes in insurance work, told one reporter that insurers generally do their best to avoid such cases. If it were "Joe Blow or Harry Homeowner," he told one publication, "I would be extremely surprised if the insurance companies would cover legal fees, and usually, if insurance companies do cover the case, they insist on using their own lawyers."

Klayman agrees. "Unless you live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., no insurance company in the country would dream of paying you for your defense in a case like this," he said. "Ms. Jones alleges that Mr. Clinton committed the grossest sort of sexual harassment" and then defamed her "by having his staff call her a liar when she brought her charge. Insurance policies just don't cover that conduct."

There seems little doubt that Clinton was recompensed by his insurance companies in a way that ordinary policyholders aren't. "If this was Ma and Pa Kettle," asked Klayman, "would (the insurance firms) cut a check to pursue a tangential issue of law?"

Yet Clinton was given $1.5 million to pay his top-notch attorneys, including Robert Bennett, who commands $495 an hour for his formidable skills. Most insurance companies have a ceiling of $225 an hour for outside attorneys.

In a strange twist to the case, a court "victory" by Clinton might have been the worst of all consequences for him. On Aug. 22, federal Judge Susan Webber Wright dismissed Jones' defamation claim, along with a due-process claim. Robert Bennett, Clinton's attorney, said he was "pleased by the dismissals." By persuading the judge to dismiss that defamation claim, Giller suggested Bennett may have "slaughtered the cash cow that had been paying his fees."

After the judge's decision to throw out the defamation charges, which the insurers had said was the only reason they had paid on the policy in the first place, Giller noted that both State Farm and Chubb were entitled to withdraw from the case entirely. Within a month, both insurers did.

WINNING ROUND 1

So Flocco won Round 1. "We cut off the faucet. We stopped the cash flow," he said after the insurance companies pulled out. But he and Klayman are still pursuing his suit against State Farm. As Giller argued in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, "Under a recent California Supreme Court decision, they would be allowed to demand that Clinton repay the $1.5 million in fees they had paid to date."

Klayman contends that one or both of the two insurance companies involved made improper, indeed illegal, payments to Clinton on his insurance policies. The motive was simple, he suggested: "to buy influence."

It could be even worse than a plain old influence-buying operation, said Klayman. Perhaps even a kind of extortion was involved. "When the president calls on you and leans on you, and (his attorneys) say `Pay the settlement,' you pay," Klayman told the press. "Otherwise, the only alternative is a shakedown."

In early September, when State Farm announced it would no longer foot the president's legal bills, Clinton's lawyer, Robert Bennett, said, "The president isn't going to pay any money out of his pocket." Was Bennett hinting he would work pro bono, or was he hoping the president's legal defense fund would pick up the tab?

"It's my understanding that, in fact, no final decision has been made by either company, and I am hopeful that on further reflection both companies will continue to stand by their insured," Bennett told the press.

Klayman's lawsuit on behalf of Flocco demands return of the legal fees paid Clinton. So far, Chubb and State Farm have paid out more than $1.5 million defending against Jones' $700,000 claim.

Flocco is invigorated by his success so far. "We are not going to settle. We don't want a penny ourselves. We want the policyholders to be repaid."

The experience for the music teacher from Pennsylvania has been eye-opening, particularly because of the unusual indifference the media have shown to his case. "The media is more biased than I ever thought," he said.