Meghan Markle Loses First Round of Claim v. Paper

The Duchess of Sussex has lost an early round in her privacy case against the publisher of a British newspaper that published excerpts of a letter to her estranged father.

The case

Meghan sued Associated Newspapers for invasion of privacy and copyright infringement last year over a series of articles in the Mail on Sunday that reproduced parts of the letter she wrote in August 2018, several months after the former US actress known as Meghan Markle married Britain’s Prince Harry.

The ruling

In a ruling yesterday, Judge Mark Warby threw out some of the causes of action argued in her lawsuit, including the claim that the newspaper publisher acted “dishonestly” by quoting only certain passages of her letter.

Justice Warby also struck out the claim that Associated Newspapers deliberately “stirred up” a dispute between Meghan and her father, Thomas Markle, and had an agenda to publish intrusive or offensive stories about her.

The judge said the allegations should not be part of the case as it proceeds because he found them irrelevant to establishing if the publisher was guilty of the illegal acts cited in the duchess’ lawsuit - misuse of private information, copyright infringement and breach of the Data Protection Act. However, Justice Warby said the dismissed claims could be revived at a later stage of the case.

Associated Newspapers denies the allegations.

Meghan’s argument

Meghan has previously said that if she won the case she would donate any damages she might be awarded to an anti-bullying charity.

Her lawyers argue that the hand-written letter in question was a “private and intimate” message from a daughter to her father, and accuse the newspaper of targeting Meghan with “distortive, manipulative, and dishonest tactics”.

“The duchess’ rights were violated; the legal boundaries around privacy were crossed,” her lawyers said in a statement.

They expressed surprise that the judge’s ruling “suggests that dishonest behaviour is not relevant,” but added that “the core elements of this case do not change and will continue to move forward”.

AAP