Tracey Brose: ‘No financial gain but enough is enough’

The Queensland principal at the centre of extraordinary defamation trial has admitted she will be worse off even if she wins the landmark case.

Tamborine Mountain State High Principal Tracey Brose leaves Southport Court. Picture: Adam Head

IT was the landmark defamation action seeking more than $1 million in damages, but a Gold Coast high school principal now stands to lose thousands of dollars even if she wins the case.

Tamborine Mountain State High School principal Tracey Brose launched legal action against eight parents who allegedly posted defamatory comments online after she was suspended in mysterious circumstances in 2016.

Parent collapses in tears on final day of defamation trial

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Now, at the end of a spiteful and explosive month-long trial, it has emerged Mrs Brose will be financially worse off even if she wins, after her legal team made a last-minute plea for a vastly-reduced sum in damages from Judge Catherine Muir.

Donna Baluskas is one of the parents being sued by Tracey Brose. Picture: Adam Head

Mrs Brose had initially sought to sue each parent for $220,000, but as one reached a zero-dollar-settlement and another declared bankruptcy, only three, Donna Baluskas, her husband Miguel Baluskas and Laura Lawson, took the fight to the bitter end of an extraordinary trial in Southport District Court.

In her closing submission, Mrs Brose’s barrister Holly Blattman offered a revised damages figure with Judge Muir questioning why the claim was now for “considerably” less than the original amount.

“We’ve now had a trial and we’ve had disclosures and that was the amount that was submitted to be appropriate,” Ms Blattman replied.

The actual new amount was not divulged and Ms Blattman would not confirm the figure after the hearing, but it means Mrs Brose, who has racked up more than $600,000 in legal fees alone, would likely be out of pocket even if she was awarded at the higher end of the revised figure.

The final say in awarding damages goes to the presiding judge who can use their discretion in determining any damages amounts, but appearing in the witness stand on the trial’s final day, Mrs Brose conceded she would not profit from the three-year legal stoush.

“There is no financial gain for me,” she told the court.

“(But) it is my legal right to say ‘enough is enough’.”

Mrs Brose claimed “hurt and distress” over a series of posts made on Facebook and a Change.org petition following her suspension which alleged she was “evil” and “a bully”, but Judge Muir raised grave concerns over the case, saying there was no medical evidence to support those claims.

Earlier in the trial, she urged the warring parties to come to some form of understanding as the outcome “may not be what any of you are hoping for”.

Mrs Baluskas, who faces losing the family home if she loses the case, broke down in tears during her closing address, while Ms Lawson told the court she had “nothing to give the plaintiff and no assets to sell”.

Judge Muir is expected to deliver her findings early next year.