Meghan Markle’s lengthy court battle with the publishers of theMail on Sundayis over.
The Duchess of Sussex scored a major legal victory on Thursday in herprivacy and copyright infringement caseagainst Associated Newspapers, when the Court of Appeal in London ruled in her favor against the publisher of the Mail on Sunday after they printed parts of a private letter she wrote to her father.
The decision means that the case will not proceed to trial and that Meghan can now expect to receive substantial financial damages from the newspaper group, plus apublic apologyprinted on the front page of theMail on Sundayand the homepage of theMail Online.
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“This is a victory not just for me, but for anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right,” Meghan said in a statement after the judgment was delivered in London on Thursday morning.
“While this win is precedent setting, what matters most is that we are now collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that conditions people to be cruel, and profits from the lies and pain that they create,” she continued.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.Taylor Hill/WireImage
“From day one, I have treated this lawsuit as an important measure of right versus wrong. The defendant has treated it as a game with no rules,” Meghan said. “The longer they dragged it out, the more they could twist facts and manipulate the public (even during the appeal itself), making a straightforward case extraordinarily convoluted in order to generate more headlines and sell more newspapers—a model that rewards chaos above truth. In the nearly three years since this began, I have been patient in the face of deception, intimidation, and calculated attacks.
Thursday’s ruling emanates from a three-day appeal hearing in November that re-assessed the merits of asummary judgmentdelivered in Meghan’s favor on February 11.
Meghan Markle.NDZ/Star Max/GC Images
During the November hearing, Associated Newspapers entered new evidence based on a witness statement from the couple’s former communications secretary, Jason Knauf, which they hoped would overturn the original decision and lead to a full trial at the High Court in London.
Associated Newspapers also provided a series of previously unseen text messages and e-mails swapped between Meghan and Knauf, where the duchess explained her plans to write the letter to her father, following his decision to speak to the media after he pulled out of attending her May 2018 wedding.
“The catalyst for my doing this is seeing how much pain this is causing H,” Meghan said via text in August 2018, using her pet name for her husband. “Even after a week with his dad [Prince Charles] and endlessly explaining the situation, his family seem to forget the context — and revert to ‘can’t she just go and see him and make this stop?'”
Meghan Markle at the NYT DealBook Summit in November 2021.NYT DealBook Summit
Meghan added in the text, “Obviously everything I have drafted is with the understanding that it could be leaked so I have been meticulous in my word choice.”
In response to the arrival of this evidence, the duchess apologized to the court for being unable to provide the communications with Knauf at an earlier stage, stating “I had absolutely no wish or intention to mislead the defendant or the court.”
On Thursday, the Court of Appeal noted this apology, adding the caveat that it was “at best, an unfortunate lapse of memory on her part.” Despite this, the court stated that the texts and e-mails provided “little assistance” to the issues being heard in the courtroom and that they ultimately had very little influence on their decision to deny Associated Newspaper’s appeal.
Joe Pugliese
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“Those contents were personal, private, and not matters of legitimate public interest,” Voss continued. “The articles in theMail on Sundayinterfered with the Duchess’s reasonable expectation of privacy.”
While the case will now return to the High Court for damages to be determined, Thursday’s ruling effectively brings the three-year legal proceedings to a close.
“Tomorrow it could be you. These harmful practices don’t happen once in a blue moon—they are a daily fail that divide us, and we all deserve better.”
source: people.com
