The right to get it wrong
Media lawyers' new public interest defence for defamation "has legs", and the "serious harm" might have helped Brittany Higgins.
Even with the Linda Reynolds v Brittany Higgins verdict, it has been a good month for defendants in defamation cases.
The former defence minister was awarded $315,000 in damages, plus $26,000 in interest payments on Wednesday after suing her former staffer in the Supreme Court of Western Australia over social media posts in 2023 about Reynolds' handling of rape allegations Higgins made against former colleague Bruce Lehrmann.
The trial was conducted under different laws to the rest of the country after WA refused to sign up to uniform defamation legislation that came into force in July 2021.
Those laws included a "serious harm" test, which might have complicated Reynolds' claim, and a new defence of public interest. Media groups hoped it would be more effective than the statutory qualified privilege — or reasonable conduct — defence.
