Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann has been ordered to pay $2 million in prices to Community Ten and journalist after his failed defamation declare in opposition to the broadcaster.
In April, the Federal Court docket discovered in opposition to Lehrmann in his declare. Lehrmann has now been ordered to pay the prices for Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson.
Whereas Ten’s barrister, Zoe Graus, instructed the court docket on Thursday morning that the broadcaster’s estimated authorized prices have been in extra of $3 million, on the suggestion of Justice Lee the community sought a lump sum order totalling $2 million with a view to keep away from the expense and time of a prices evaluation.
Wilkinson, who had a simultaneous declare in opposition to Community Ten searching for for the broadcaster to pay for her (separate) authorized illustration, has had a proposal from the broadcaster of $558,548.30, lower than a 3rd of the $1.8 million she was initially searching for from her former employer.
In any case, the total extent of the prices within the case are unlikely to be settled. The court docket heard Lehrmann is a person of “modest means”, and in Could heard that Lehrmann had a no-win, no-fee association along with his attorneys.
Lehrmann has been unemployed since June 2021 and is at present learning regulation on the College of Notre Dame. He has an attraction in opposition to the trial judgement, though in a separate motion, Ten has filed for the attraction to be dismissed if Lehrmann can not produce $200,000 in safety.
Lehrmann’s defamation case got here after his former colleague, ex-Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, gave an interview to Wilkinson on Ten’s The Undertaking in 2021, alleging she had been raped in Parliament Home in 2019. Lehrmann, who has at all times denied raping Higgins, was not named, however claimed he was identifiable from the story.
Lehrmann had initially additionally filed defamation lawsuits in opposition to the ABC and Information Corp. He settled forward of the trial with Information Corp, which revealed an interview on information.com.au between Higgins and political editor Samantha Maiden the day of the Undertaking broadcast, in addition to with the ABC, which aired a later deal with to the Nationwide Press Membership by Higgins wherein she repeated her claims.
