Former Liberal senator Linda Reynolds has initiated bankruptcy proceedings against Brittany Higgins in a bid to recover over $1 million in damages and legal costs following a defamation victory in August. The action, filed in the Federal Court on Friday, follows a similar move against Higgins' husband, David Sharaz.
In August, the Western Australia Supreme Court ordered Higgins to pay Reynolds $315,000 in damages plus $26,109 in interest for defamatory social media posts. Sharaz was found jointly liable for his role in publishing a defamatory tweet and Instagram story. The couple must also cover 80% of Reynolds' legal costs, expected to exceed $1 million.
Justice Paul Tottle ruled that an Instagram story posted by Higgins on 4 July 2023 was defamatory. The post shared a screenshot of headlines about Reynolds referring Higgins' $2.445 million personal injury settlement to the federal anti-corruption body, and accused Reynolds of mishandling Higgins' alleged rape and waging a harassment campaign. However, Tottle found that Higgins had successfully defended another post accusing Reynolds of 'silencing' sexual assault victim-survivors, citing defences of honest opinion, fair comment, and qualified privilege.
In September, Higgins' legal team filed an appeal against the judgment and the order to pay Reynolds' legal fees. The defamation case stemmed from Higgins' allegations in February 2021 that she was sexually assaulted by a colleague in Reynolds' ministerial office in March 2019, and that Reynolds failed to support her. Reynolds' lawyers argued that Higgins had cast the senator as a 'villain' in a 'fairytale' of political cover-up.
The verdict follows a separate defamation case where Bruce Lehrmann, who denied raping Higgins, lost his case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson. In that case, Justice Michael Lee found on the balance of probabilities that Lehrmann had raped Higgins in Parliament House in 2019.
