Lisa Wilkinson seeks $1.8m costs from 10

Lisa Wilkinson is seeking $1.8 million in legal costs from Network 10 following the high-profile defamation fight with Bruce Lehrmann.

Parties returned to the Federal Court today over costs.

Earlier this year 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.

Justice Lee today said Ms Wilkinson was seeking an indemnity of a whopping $1,815,000 inclusive of GST “give or take some cents”.

Network 10 previously 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.

Justice Lee said two ‘sensible solicitors’ with a blue and yellow highlighter should be able to work out the relevant costs by looking at a timeline.

“I really do think that if two sensible solicitors got into a room together, you should be able to go through with a yellow and blue highlighter and work out by reference to the yellow ones where there isn’t any dispute,” he said.

The judge said he had hoped Network 10 would go to Wilkinson and detail what amount it was prepared to pay, and what was disputed.

Had that happened, Justice Lee said he could have issued a partial recovery order for Wilkinson so she “could get some money”, and that they refer the rest of the claim to a referee.

Wilkinson’s lawyer told the court a “sensible amount of money” could have been recognised as being payable, and that Network 10 had an “ongoing reluctance to pay us anything.”

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.

Bruce Lehrmann has until May 31 to file any notice of appealing the judgement of his defamation case.

Source: News.com.au, Daily Mail