Brittany Higgins ordered to pay 80 per cent of legal costs after bruising loss to former boss Linda Reynolds

Brittany Higgins has been ordered to pay most of Linda Reynolds’ legal costs after losing the epic defamation case brought by her former boss, with court documents revealing she made a $200,000 settlement offer.

WA Supreme Court judge Paul Tottle last month found the former Liberal senator’s ex-junior media adviser defamed her on three occasions in a series of social media posts in 2022 and 2023.

In them, Ms Higgins referred to being “bullied” and refusing to “stay silent”, alleging Ms Reynolds mishandled her claim she was raped by colleague Bruce Lehrmann at Parliament House in 2019.

Justice Tottle awarded Ms Reynolds $315,000 in damages plus $26,109 in interest after a long, bitter and costly trial a year ago.

And on Tuesday, he ordered Ms Higgins pay 80 per cent of the plaintiff’s costs on an indemnity basis “save to the extent that the costs were unreasonably incurred or were of an unreasonable amount”.

Such costs were “to be assessed”, he added.

Ms Higgins had proposed paying only two-thirds of Ms Reynolds’ costs and capping the maximum allowable rate for her lawyer Martin Bennett at $781 per hour.

The costs order showed that Ms Higgins’s $200,000 offer on July 29 last year came just four days before the trial and was only open for acceptance for three days.

While Ms Higgins’ lawyers characterised it as a “material contribution” towards legal fees, to be paid by her parents, Ms Reynolds deemed it an unreasonable offer - and Justice Tottle agreed.

“First, the offer did not provide the plaintiff with any vindication of her reputation,” he said.

Secondly, Ms Higgins’ offer “to the release of a joint statement of mutual regret” fell short of an apology by a substantial margin, Justice Tottle said.

Ms Reynolds saw it as amounting to “nothing more than the parties agreeing to disagree”, a characterisation Justice Tottle described as “accurate”.

“The mutual statement would have conveyed the defendant maintained the truth of the defamatory statements made by her,” the judge said.

And there was no offer of compensation, he said.

Ms Reynolds contended that Ms Higgins’ parents would stump up the cash so “the defendant would be able to publicly state ‘she did not pay a dollar to the plaintiff’.”

But Ms Higgins argued that her offer was reasonable given that when she made it, she was unemployed and her $2.4 million settlement with the Federal Government over her mishandling claim was held in a protective trust.

After last month’s verdict, Mr Bennett was asked if he would delve more into the trust that his client alleged Ms Higgins set up in a bid to defeat creditors, and replied: “If we have to”.

Ms Reynolds said her fight to clear her name had cost her millions.

Through Mr Bennett’s firm on Tuesday, the former politician said she was pleased with the costs order, confirming her fees had been “significant”.

Last year, Mr Bennett told reporters that Ms Higgins went on a “splurge of spending” after clinching the Commonwealth settlement, including a trip to the Maldives.

Ms Higgins and her husband David Sharaz, who Ms Reynolds also sued, reportedly had to sell their chateau in France recently for an estimated $700,000.

Ms Higgins does not have to pay costs for the aspect of Ms Reynolds’ case that was unsuccessful, a claim of a conspiracy between the couple to harm her.