Meghan wins U.K. privacy lawsuit
A newspaper invaded the Duchess of Sussex’s privacy by publishing a personal letter to her estranged father, a British judge ruled Thursday, in a major victory for the royal in her campaign against what she sees as media intrusion.
A former American actress, Meghan Markle, 39, sued publisher Associated Newspapers for invasion of privacy and copyright infringement over five February 2019 articles in the Mail on Sunday and on the MailOnline website that published large portions of a letter that she wrote to her father after her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry.
High Court judge Mark Warby ruled that the publisher had misused the duchess’s private information and infringed her copyright.
Meghan said she was grateful to the court for holding Associated Newspapers to account “for their illegal and dehumanizing practices.”
Associated Newspapers said it was “very surprised by today’s summary judgment and disappointed at being denied the chance to have all the evidence heard and tested in open court at a full trial.”
“We are carefully considering the judgment’s contents and will decide in due course whether to lodge an appeal,” said the publishing company, which had strongly contested Meghan’s claim.
A trial in the case, scheduled for the fall, would have been one of the most high-profile civil legal showdowns in London for years.
But at hearings last month, lawyers for the duchess asked for a summary judgment to settle the case without a trial.