{"id":151492,"date":"2025-09-18T06:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T06:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/151492\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T06:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T06:42:09","slug":"brittany-higgins-files-last-day-appeal-over-ex-senator-linda-reynoldss-defamation-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/151492\/","title":{"rendered":"Brittany Higgins files last-day appeal over ex-senator Linda Reynolds’s defamation win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brittany Higgins has lodged an appeal against a WA Supreme Court judgement that she defamed former Liberal senator Linda Reynolds in social media posts.<\/p>\n

Justice Paul Tottle found Ms Higgins had defamed Ms Reynolds, and ordered she pay $315,000 in damages and more than $26,000 in interest.<\/p>\n

The ruling last month followed a trial in Perth last year in which Ms Reynolds accused her former staffer of conducting an orchestrated campaign to end her political career.<\/p>\n

Reynolds vindicated in defamation battle, but at what cost?<\/a><\/p>\n

Former senator Linda Reynolds has won her defamation case against her ex-staffer Brittany Higgins, but the emotional and financial toll of the three-year legal battle has been immense for both women.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Justice Tottle also ordered that Ms Higgins pay 80 per cent of Ms Reynolds’ legal costs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ms Reynolds’s lawyer told the ABC the cost order would exceed $1 million.<\/p>\n

It was also revealed Ms Higgins tried to settle with the former senator for $200,000 days before the high-profile case began.<\/p>\n

Last-minute appeal<\/p>\n

In the notice seen by the ABC, Ms Higgins is now appealing Justice Tottle’s judgement, and the ruling that she pay 80 per cent of Ms Reynolds’s costs.<\/p>\n

It was filed on Wednesday \u2014 the last day possible for Ms Higgins to appeal.<\/p>\n

\"Brittany<\/p>\n

Brittany Higgins said last month she was grateful the defamation case had reached a conclusion. (AAP:\u00a0Dan Himbrechts)<\/p>\n

A second appeal notice argued the ruling for Ms Higgins to pay 80 per cent of Ms Reynolds’s legal costs was “unreasonable”.<\/p>\n

The lodging of the appeal notice came soon after Ms Higgins was served with a bankruptcy notice by Linda Reynolds’s legal team.<\/p>\n

Ms Higgins was asked to comply with a request to pay what was ordered by the Supreme Court, or make arrangements to do so, within 21 days.<\/p>\n

The lodging of the appeal means those proceedings are essentially put on hold, until the appeal is decided or dismissed.<\/p>\n

Bankruptcy would have to be decided by the Federal Court.<\/p>\n

The legal action was launched by Ms Reynolds following social media posts made by Ms Higgins beginning in 2022.<\/p>\n

The former WA senator argued the posts trashed her reputation and caused her immense distress, following a period of ill health.<\/p>\n

Ms Higgins was working for Ms Reynolds when she said she was raped by Bruce Lehrmann at the former senator’s Parliament House office.<\/p>\n

The finding of rape was made last year “on the balance of probabilities” by Justice Michael Lee during a separate civil defamation action Mr Lehrmann had launched in the Federal Court.<\/p>\n

\"Linda<\/p>\n

Linda Reynolds won her defamation case against Brittany Higgins in August. (ABC News: Glyn Jones)<\/p>\n

Linda Reynolds never contended Ms Higgins’s allegation regarding Mr Lehrmann.<\/p>\n

Following Justice Tottle’s judgement, Ms Higgins issued a statement saying she was grateful the matter had reached a conclusion.<\/p>\n

She said she accepted that Ms Reynolds’ feelings were hurt by events since she was allegedly sexually assaulted in her office, and she was sorry for that.<\/p>\n

Ms Higgins had said she looked forward, with her family, to “healing and rebuilding our lives”.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brittany Higgins has lodged an appeal against a WA Supreme Court judgement that she defamed former Liberal senator…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61971,72656,72654,72655,72651,72652,72653,43,72650,55416,61973,44,9801,86,41,39,42,40,45,72657],"class_list":{"0":"post-151492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-brittany-higgins","9":"tag-brittany-higgins-france","10":"tag-brittany-higgins-trial","11":"tag-bruce-lehrmann-appeal","12":"tag-bruce-lerhrmann","13":"tag-david-sharaz","14":"tag-defamation-trial","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-linda-reynolds","17":"tag-lisa-wilkinson","18":"tag-michael-lee","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-parliament","21":"tag-perth-news","22":"tag-top-news","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topnews","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-wa-news","27":"tag-wa-supreme-court"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}