Yahoo Finance Meghan Markle Wins Legal Battle With British Tabloid Over Publication Of Letter To Her Father
Meghan Markle, the Duchess Of Sussex, has won a dramatic legal victory against British tabloid newspaper, the Mail On Sunday, after it published a private letter she sent to her father, Thomas Markle.
Per reports, Markle has secured a summary judgment in her favor from Lord Justice Warby, meaning the misuse of private information element of her case will not proceed to a potentially bruising court battle in which both Markles would likely have given evidence.
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Markle sued Associated Newspapers for breach of copyright after the Mail on Sunday and MailOnline published a private letter to her father Thomas Markle in February 2019. She argued last month for a summary judgment and this has now been granted.
The ruling in her favor pertains to the privacy element of her claim, but Justice Warby said a separate copyright claim still needs to be resolved, despite agreeing that publication did infringe copyright. A hearing has been set for early March. A third claim, relating to data protection, is also still ongoing.
In a statement, Markle said: “After two long years of pursuing litigation, I am grateful to the courts for holding Associated Newspapers and the Mail On Sunday to account for their illegal and dehumanising practices.
“These tactics – and those of their sister publications MailOnline and the Daily Mail – are not new. In fact, they’ve been going on for far too long without consequence. For these outlets, it’s a game. For me and so many others, it’s real life, real relationships and very real sadness. The damage they have done and continue to do runs deep.
“The world needs reliable, fact-checked, high-quality news. What the Mail On Sunday and its partner publications do is the opposite. We all lose when misinformation sells more than truth, when moral exploitation sells more than decency and when companies create their business model to profit from people’s pain. But, for today, with this comprehensive win on both privacy and copyright, we have all won.
“We now know, and hope it creates legal precedent, that you cannot take somebody’s privacy and exploit it in a privacy case, as the defendant has blatantly done over the past two years.
“I share this victory with each of you – because we all deserve justice and truth, and we all deserve better. I particularly want to thank my husband, mom and legal team, and especially (her solicitor) Jenny Afia for her unrelenting support throughout this process.”
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