High-profile television personality Lisa Wilkinson is seeking $1.8 million from employer Network 10 over legal costs incurred during Bruce Lehrmann’s failed defamation lawsuit, a court has heard.
Justice Michael Lee earlier this year dismissed Lehrmann’s high-profile lawsuit against Ms Wilkinson and Network 10 over Brittany Higgins’ comments that she was raped in Parliament House.
In his judgment, Justice Lee found that – on the balance of probabilities – Lehrmann had raped Ms Higgins inside Senator Linda Reynolds’ office, and dismissed Lehrmann’s defamation claim.
Ms Wilkinson has since returned to court amid the multimillion-dollar fallout from the lengthy legal battle after she hired outside legal help to represent her separately from the network, in the form of top defamation barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC.
Returning before the Federal Court in Sydney on Monday, Justice Lee said Ms Wilkinson was seeking an indemnity of a whopping $1,815,000 inclusive of GST “give or take some cents”.
Justice Lee established four main areas for Monday’s case management hearing, including now-resolved issues about timing as well as the remit of an appointed referee to judge the costs issue.
“What I had envisioned in relation to the inquiry is that there would be an element of Miss Wilkinson’s costs, which would essentially be undisputed and I could direct the referees attention to specific items, which are the subject of dispute and formulated questions accordingly,” Justice Lee told the court.
The Federal Court justice said the hearing had not yet reached that stage and questioned why legal retainer agreements provided on behalf of Ms Wilkinson had not been signed.
Justice Lee briefly adjourned the matter for Ms Wilkinson’s lawyers to inquire about the agreements after stating they did not know if there as an issue in procuring singed copies.
In its earlier written submissions, Network 10 said it did not have to pick up the bill for Ms Wilkinson’s legal costs which were “unnecessarily duplicative or wasteful”, and called for a referee.
The referee is tasked with combing through the legal bills incurred by the TV host to decide whether the costs were reasonable, with the court told Mr Wilkinson had provided all her invoices.
More to come.