By Bill Varian, Times Staff Writer
Friday, November 6, 2009

TAMPA — The good news: Hillsborough County has learned that an insurance policy it holds will cover its legal expenses from Commissioner Kevin White's sexual discrimination trial.

The bad news: The policy has what amounts to a $350,000 deductible. And it doesn't cover $75,000 in damages awarded to the former aide who sued White.

What's more, because the county filed its insurance claim first, taxpayers will have to take the deductible hit, on top of paying the damages. And White may be able to submit a claim on the same policy for his own legal bills and have them fully paid.

The insurer will pay roughly $65,000 after the deductible. That still leaves taxpayers on the hook in this sordid affair for $425,000.

The cost to White: potentially zero.

"That doesn't sound right at all," said Commissioner Mark Sharpe. "This whole thing is damning and outrageous."

But county risk managers say its entirely possible. They don't believe White would face a separate deductible. And they expect, since the insurer is paying the county's legal costs, that the policy will also cover his expenses.

"It's one deductible per incident," said Christina Swanson, director of the county's employee benefits and risk management division. "We were sued jointly and determined to be jointly liable."

A federal jury found in August that White sexually discriminated against former aide Alyssa Ogden. In the lawsuit, she said she was fired after seven months on the job in 2007 for refusing his repeated sexual advances. The suit also named Hillsborough County as a defendant.

The jury awarded Ogden $75,000 in damages, and the verdict meant she was entitled to have her legal bills paid. The judge said the county was liable as well, in part for not having a meaningful way for employees such as Ogden to file a workplace complaint.

White's fellow commissioners have been trying to pressure him to pick up some of the nearly $490,000 initial total tab.