Brittany Higgins ordered to pay 80 per cent of former senator Linda Reynolds’ legal bill for defamation suit

Brittany Higgins has been ordered to pay 80 per cent of former senator Linda Reynolds’ legal costs following a WA Supreme Court judgment that found she defamed the retired politician. Justice Paul Tottle said it was not possible to determine a precise discount and reduced the costs in Ms Reynolds’ favour by 20 per cent. He said a lot of the evidence from the defamation trial was directed to a conspiracy claim, in particular harm suffered by Ms Reynolds in 2021, prior to the time the defamatory social media posts were published by Ms Higgins and her husband David Sharaz. “In my judgment, the interests of justice may be served by a percentage reduction in (Ms Reynolds’) costs to reflect that (she) did not establish her claim in relation to the 20 July 2023 tweets and that she did not establish her conspiracy claim,” he said. Court documents revealed Ms Higgins offered Ms Reynolds a settlement payment of $200,000 four days before the trial started, but was rejected. She also tried to have Ms Reynolds’ lawyer fees capped at $781 per hour, but her former boss argued her lawyer’s fees should be paid and include costs for two solicitors, a restricted practitioner and paralegal. Justice Tottle found the settlement offer made to Ms Reynolds was unreasonable and $200,000 would only have been a contribution to costs. He said the offer did not vindicate Ms Reynolds’ of her reputation. Ms Reynolds argued a mutual statement drafted by Ms Higgins did not admit liability, did not include an apology and said no more than the parties agreed to disagree. Ms Higgins argued the offer was fair and included a $10,000 charity donation, and it was wrong to claim the mutual statement contained no apology because it included a statement of mutual regret acknowledging a previous apology to Ms Reynolds and her former chief of staff Fiona Brown. But Justice Tottle found the mutual statement fell short of an apology by a substantial margin. “(Ms Reynolds’) characterisation of it as a statement to the effect the parties have agreed to disagree is accurate,” he said. “As appears to have been Ms Higgins’ intention, the mutual statement would have conveyed she maintained the truth of the defamatory statements made by her. “The reference to the previous apology accentuated the absence of an apology in the statement itself.” Ms Reynolds sued Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz over a series of social media posts the pair published in 2022 and 2023 that claimed the former senator mishandled her junior staffer’s rape allegation. Ms Higgins alleged she was raped in the senator’s office at Parliament House by her then colleague Bruce Lehrmann, who continues to deny the allegation. Following a five-week blockbuster defamation trial in the WA Supreme Court last year, Justice Tottle found the three posts did defame Ms Reynolds, but Ms Higgins established the defence of honest opinion, fair comment and qualified privilege for one post. Ms Reynolds was awarded $341,000 in damages in the WA Supreme Court last month, telling media the legal action was about the dishonest and devastating attack on her reputation that was based on carefully curated lies. It was estimated the legal costs involved in the defamation proceeding could reach millions of dollars and that both parties risked losing their homes. Ms Reynolds remortgaged her Perth home to cover legal costs, while Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz sold their chateau in France.