Brittany Higgins has been ordered to pay 80% of her former boss Linda Reynold’s legal costs from their high profile defamation fight.
Last month, Western Australian supreme court judge Paul Tottle ruled the former defence minister’s reputation was damaged by a 2022 social media post from Higgins’ partner David Sharaz, which Higgins responded to, and an Instagram story published by Higgins in July 2023.
The judgment marked the latest chapter in a long legal battle stemming from Higgins’ decision to go public with allegations she was raped in a ministerial suite in Parliament House by a former colleague, Bruce Lehrmann.
On Tuesday, the judge ruled Higgins should pay the majority of Reynolds’ legal costs. The total amount is not known but is expected to be in the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Last week, Reynolds, who retired from federal Parliament earlier this year, was awarded $315,000 in damages plus $26,000 in interest from the defamation case.
The judgement revealed Reynolds offered to settle the case in July last year, if Higgins agreed to a $200,000 payment for Reynolds’ legal fees.
The verdict also came more than a year after a federal court judge ruled against Lehrmann in his defamation case against Network Ten and high profile journalist Lisa Wilkinson for airing Higgins’ sexual assault allegations against him.
Lehrmann denied the rape allegations and pleaded not guilty at his criminal trial in the Australian Capital Territory supreme court, which was aborted. Prosecutors did not seek a retrial due to concerns about Higgins’ mental health.
More details soon…