Bruce Lehrmann has big legal win as appeal gets green light

Bruce Lehrmann will not have to stump up $200,000 in order to appeal against his damaging defamation suit loss to Network 10 in a significant legal win for the former political staffer.

Lehrmann is seeking to appeal against Justice Michael Lee’s findings after he earlier this year lost his high-stakes lawsuit against Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson over Brittany Higgins’ The Project interview.

Justice Lee found, on the balance of probabilities, that Lehrmann raped Ms Higgins inside Parliament House in March 2019 following a night out drinking with colleagues.

He was subsequently ordered to pay $2m for Ten and Wilkinson’s legal costs for the high-profile trial.

The court has previously heard that Ten expects to spend $272,500 on legal costs to run an appeal.

It has also been estimated that Ms Wilkinson, who has her own legal team headed by prominent defamation barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC, expected to spend another $203,500 for the appeal.

Lehrmann has consistently denied the allegations and is seeking to have Justice Lee’s findings overturned on appeal.

Lehrmann filed a notice of appeal however Ten asked the court to order that the now unemployed law student pay a $200,000 surety in order for his appeal hearing to go ahead.

The amount was to cover Ten’s legal costs in the event that Lehrmann loses - an application that was opposed by Lehrmann.

And Justice Wendy Abraham on Wednesday ruled in Lehrmann’s favour, ordering he did not have to pay the $200,000 security.

It effectively green lights Lehrmann’s appeal.

His lawyer Zali Burrows has previously told the court that Lehrmann was unable to come up with a six-figure sum given he was on Centrelink.

Separately, Lehrmann also applied for a stay on the $2m costs order.

And Justice Abraham again ruled in Lehrmann‘s favour, ordering the costs order be set aside while his appeal is on foot.

The matter will now return to court in two weeks, with Justice Abraham telling the court the appeal could be heard as early as March.

The court has heard the appeal is expected to last three days.

Ms Burrows told the court last week Lehrman was unable to pay a $200,000 security.

“It’s a bit rich to ask him to put up $200,000 when they are one of the contributors to why he is pretty much unemployable,” Ms Burrows said.

“The only shot he’d probably ever have in making money is by going on OnlyFans or something silly like that.

“Other than they know he can’t come up with this money and it’s just to shut down this appeal altogether.”

In her submissions to the court, Ms Burrows had claimed there was a “power imbalance” between Ten and Lehrmann.

She further described the application for a surety as a “bullying hard-hitting tactic” to “smack down” his appeal.

She also argued that Ten would earn more than $200,000 in advertising revenue by reporting on any appeal.

Meanwhile Ten had argued that Lehrmann’s prospects of winning on appeal “are not strong”.

The network’s barrister Dr Matt Collins KC had described Lehrmann’s grounds of appeal as hopeless and “faintly arguable”.

The court has heard that if Lehrmann is made to pay the $2m costs order, he will be tipped into bankruptcy.

Justice Abraham said in a written judgment published on Wednesday that there was a public interest in the appeal being heard.

“The finding against (Lehrmann) is extremely serious. Ms Wilkinson described it as a finding of criminal conduct. The impact on him if he is denied that right is self-evident,” she said.

She ruled in Lehrmann’s favour despite acknowledging that if Ten wins the appeal, any subsequent costs order - for their legal fees for running the appeal - will “likely be unrecoverable”.

“There is no dispute that Mr Lehrmann is on Centrelink benefits and is impecunious,” she said.

“Network Ten accepts that Mr Lehrmann does not have the money to pay the order.

“Although it has commenced an enforcement process against him, as they were entitled to do, there is no basis for thinking that it will retrieve the amount owed. Network Ten accepted that proposition.”

Lehrmann faced trial in the ACT Supreme Court in 2022 after pleading not guilty to one count of sexual intercourse without consent.

The trial was abandoned due to juror misconduct and the Director of Public Prosecutions dropped the charges and plans for a retrial due to concerns about Ms Higgins’ welfare.