It's a story about legal argument between the parties concerning the Lehrmannn vs Channel 10 and Wilkinson defamation case.
The court published correspondence and submissions and news reported it.
From The Age:
Federal Court Justice Michael Lee presiding over Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation fight with Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson has asked the parties a series of questions via email, including about Brittany Higgins’ $2.4 million settlement with the Commonwealth, as he prepares to deliver his decision in the high-stakes case.
Lee has invited further written submissions from the parties on specific issues, including legal principles relating to damages.
Submissions released by the court on Friday reveal Lee’s associate wrote to the parties via email on Monday in response to written submissions from Ten filed that day.
The email raised a question about whether Ten contended “there would be a failure to comply with the dictates of procedural fairness in the event that the Court found it necessary to deal with the submissions made by Mr Lehrmann” about Higgins’ deed of settlement with the Commonwealth.
Ten has noted that neither Higgins nor the Commonwealth is a party to the defamation case.
Lehrmann’s lawyers have submitted that Higgins made representations in the deed about the night she alleges Lehrmann sexually assaulted her in Parliament House that are inconsistent with her evidence in court. They submit that Higgins had “a preparedness to tell lies, including elaborate lies”.
One of the asserted inconsistencies related to the circumstances in which Higgins shared a taxi or Uber with Lehrmann in the early hours of March 23, 2019. The deed, signed by Higgins in December 2022, said Lehrmann “without invitation or agreement” got into Higgins’ taxi.During her evidence in the defamation case, Higgins said she was told she lived in the same direction as Lehrmann “and so at that point, I was so compliant, I said great. Sure. I will share a cab”.
In written submissions, Ten argues there are “no or no substantial inconsistencies” between the accounts, and the phrase “without invitation or agreement” was “intended to convey no more than that the decision to share a cab and stop at Parliament House was not prearranged or something that Ms Higgins suggested”.“The allegations concerning the alleged sexual assault, as recorded in the Deed, are entirely consistent with all other accounts that Ms Higgins has given of the event,” Ten’s submissions said.
In submissions filed on Tuesday in response to Lee’s further question, Ten’s barristers, led by Dr Matt Collins, KC, said it would be “inappropriate for this Court to make any finding as to the characterisation of Ms Higgins’ conduct contended for by Mr Lehrmann – in substance, that she was prepared to tell lies, including elaborate lies … with the intention of inducing the Commonwealth of Australia to enter into the Deed which provided for the payment of a life-changing settlement sum”.
However, the broadcaster’s barristers said it did “not contend that the representations in the Deed cannot be considered as part of an assessment of the general credit of Ms Higgins” in a more limited sense, “which is in short whether it discloses a preparedness to tell lies on solemn occasions that infects the Court’s assessment of the evidence she gave in this proceeding”.Ultimately, however, Ten has submitted that “the Court ought to reject Mr Lehrmann’s submission that the relevant representations demonstrate a ‘preparedness to tell lies, including elaborate lies, on the most solemn of occasions’.”“[Lehrmann’s] submission that Ms Higgins lied in the Deed to secure a payment ... is extraordinary and without foundation,” Ten said.
The email from Lee’s associate said “nothing in this email indicates a view, one way or another, as to the underlying merit of any credit submission based on the Commonwealth Deed”.
Lehrmann has denied raping Higgins in the office of the then defence industry minister Linda Reynolds, for whom they worked as advisers. His ACT Supreme Court criminal trial for sexual assault was aborted in 2022 due to juror misconduct. The charge was later dropped altogether owing to concerns about Higgins’ mental health.
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