Meghan to court: Say I win

In a bold move, Meghan Markle has asked London’s High Court to scrap an upcoming trial and simply rule on her privacy claim against the U.K. tabloid that published a letter she sent to her estranged father.

The Duchess of Sussex and her lawyers applied for the summary judgment Wednesday, saying they believe they have an “overwhelmingly strong case,” Vanity Fair’s London-based royal watcher Katie Nicholl reported.

If granted, the duchess (photo) could sidestep the January trial altogether and avoid the spectacle of publicly facing her dad Thomas Markle, the key witness who provided the letter to the Mail on Sunday last year.

Meghan is suing the Mail’s parent company, Associated Newspapers Ltd., for copyright infringement, invasion of privacy and a breach of the U.K.’s data protection laws.

According to Vanity Fair, Prince Charles won a 2006 case against the Mail on Sunday through summary judgment after the newspaper published excerpts from one of his travel diaries.

In the pending case, Meghan claims Associated Newspapers Ltd. improperly reproduced parts of a handwritten letter she sent to her 76-year-old dad in 2018.

One headline for a February 2019 article at the center of the case read, “Revealed: The letter showing true tragedy of Meghan’s rift with a father she says has ‘ broken her heart into a million pieces.’ ”

In a related request Wednesday, Markle and her lawyers also asked the court to delay the expected 10-day January trial.

Associated Newspapers Ltd. has denied any wrongdoing in the case, especially the claim the letter was edited in a way that misrepresented its meaning.