Brittany Higgins’ last-minute appeal against Linda Reynolds defamation award
Brittany Higgins has filed an eleventh-hour appeal against Linda Reynolds' defamation win, as a $340,000 damages bill and potential $2m legal costs hang over her head.
Brittany Higgins has lodged a last-minute appeal against the finding that she defamed former Liberal minister Linda Reynolds, as she attempts to ward off a $340,000 damages award and legal costs that could reach $2m.
Ms Higgins filed the appeal in the West Australian Supreme Court on Wednesday, the last day she was legally able to do so, and coincidentally, the same day she accepted service, through her lawyers, of the bankruptcy notice Ms Reynolds had been attempting to serve on her.
The appeal will delay any bankruptcy proceedings, and any hope that Ms Reynolds had that she might quickly recover any of the damages or massive costs she has incurred.
The former senator had filed bankruptcy proceedings against Ms Higgins in a bid to gain access to a “protective trust” that holds whatever remains of the $2.4m her former staffer received in her compensation payout from the Albanese government.
The grounds for Ms Higgins’ appeal were not specified in the notice lodged with the court.
Her husband David Sharaz is expected to be hit in coming days with a six-figure damages and costs award from the defamation case, despite his attempt to bow out of the proceedings.
Ms Reynolds had separately filed defamation action against Mr Sharaz over tweets he published on social media, including one in which he wrote that “there is a very real chance (Ms Reynolds) will be called to court this year to answer questions on her involvement in Brittany Higgins feeling pressured by her office not to continue with a complaint to police”.
Justice Tottle found that the tweet “conveyed the imputations (Ms Reynolds) pressured (Ms Higgins) not to proceed with a genuine complaint of sexual assault to police and she is a hypocrite in her advocacy for gender equality and female empowerment”.
Ms Reynolds was awarded $135,000 over the post, in which Justice Tottle found Ms Higgins had participated. He found Ms Higgins had made numerous “objectively untrue and misleading” statements when she first went public with allegations that she was raped by a colleague – now known to be Bruce Lehrmann – inside Ms Reynolds’ Parliament House office.
The judge also found Ms Higgins had defamed Ms Reynolds in a social media post that carried the imputation that the senator had engaged in a campaign of harassment, had mishandled Ms Higgins’ rape allegation, and had engaged in questionable conduct during the trial. He awarded Ms Reynolds $180,000 in damages on that issue.
Justice Tottle made damning findings about Ms Higgins’ claim that there had been a political cover-up of the rape allegations, noting that it was a vital part of Ms Higgins’ story but that it had not occurred.
Justice Tottle ruled Ms Higgins should pay 80 per cent of Ms Reynolds’ bills and that an early settlement offer – tabled four days before the trial was scheduled to begin – could not be considered reasonable.
The offer included a “mutual statement of regret” that would have led to Ms Reynolds acknowledging Ms Higgins believed she was not given appropriate support after being raped in Parliament House.
Justice Tottle found that the mutual statement “fell short of an apology by a substantial margin”.
“The plaintiff’s characterisation of it as a statement to the effect the parties have agreed to disagree is accurate,” he wrote.
“As appears to have been the defendant’s intention, the mutual statement would have conveyed the defendant maintained the truth of the defamatory statements made by her.”
While total legal costs incurred by Ms Reynolds in bringing the defamation action are unknown, she said publicly in the wake of last month’s win that she had spent “millions” on the matter and had mortgaged her house to pay legal bills.
