Meghan Markle wins privacy case against Mail on Sunday and MailOnline over letter to father WITHOUT a trial. Publisher considers appeal

The Daily Mail ^ | 2/11/21 | Vivek Chaudhary

[Faith Presses On]

The Duchess of Sussex has won her claim that her privacy was breached over the publication of a letter to her father Thomas, the High Court ruled today.

Meghan, 39, is suing Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), publishers of the Mail On Sunday and MailOnline, for misuse of private information, and infringement of copyright for publishing extracts of a letter she sent her father Mr Markle, 76, after her royal wedding in 2018.

Following today's ruling, The Mail on Sunday and MailOnline said they would be considering an appeal.

[EEGator]

I certainly don’t care for her, but I side with her on this.

[Faith Presses On]

I don’t have anything personal against her, but “VIPs” are well known for trying to manipulate their public images. If the matter had gone to trial, her father was expected to testify on the other side. I’m trying to find out if he’s the one who allowed the Mail access to it. I’d think so. And here’s a bit more of the matter:

“Five close friends of Meghan’s, who gave interviews to People Magazine in a February 2019 article, which also contained details of the letter will also now not have to give evidence.

“They were expected to travel from the US to be quizzed under oath on how the article came about.”

And this:

“Lawyers for the publisher argued that a full trial was needed so that there could be ‘factual investigation’ of the claims being made by Meghan and the role her friends or other associates played in details of the letter being made public.

“The publisher argued at the hearing that Meghan wrote the letter to her father as part of a ‘media strategy’ as part of her attempts to ‘to defend her against charges of being an uncaring or unloving daughter.’”

[lee martell]

For someone who’s always photographed as smiling and giggling, it’s interesting how cold she can be to her immediate family when they no longer serve material purpose to her. Her father, Thomas Markle, has never seen his Royal Baby grandson, nor has his son in law; Prince Harry, bothered to ever meet him, face to face.

Those two fit right in at Netflix, the media company that keeps throwing programs and pilots at Barack and Michelle.

[tired&retired]

Did they pay her father for his permission?

[mewzilla]

Still wondering if the Harkles are dodging US income taxes by having Harry stay here on a diplomatic visa...

[tired&retired]

Revealed: The handwritten letter showing true tragedy of Meghan’s rift with father she says has ‘broken her heart into a million pieces’ - and why he feels forced to make the ‘devastating’ missive public

Thomas Markle reveals full content of letter written to him by daughter Meghan

The Duchess of Sussex penned the anguish letter in response to public attacks

Mr Markle, however, insists that Meghan’s letter is actually far from conciliatory

He is speaking up after five friends of the Duchess gave anonymous interviews

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6686817/Letter-showing-true-tragedy-Meghan-Markles-rift-father.html

The full content of a sensational letter written by the Duchess of Sussex to her estranged father shortly after her wedding can be revealed for the first time today.

Its existence emerged last week after five close friends of the Duchess gave anonymous interviews to an American celebrity magazine.

They said the Duchess was so upset by her father Thomas Markle’s public attacks on her and Prince Harry that she penned the anguished letter begging him to patch up their differences privately.

But last night Mr Markle said the letter, extracts of which are published today by The Mail on Sunday, is far from conciliatory and has left him feeling ‘devastated’.

In elegant script, she accuses him of breaking her heart ‘into a million pieces’ by giving interviews to the press, fabricating stories and attacking her new husband.

The Duchess also admonishes her father, in anguished tones, for siding with her half-sister Samantha – who has attacked her in the press – while she ‘silently suffered at the hand of her vicious lies’.

[EEGator]

I don’t know. I’m looking into it, and potentially changing my original thoughts...

[tired&retired]

The Duchess’s father told no one about her letter and planned to ‘keep it totally private out of respect for her’ – until her friends launched their ‘attack’ on him last week.

Following Meghan’s ‘Duchess Difficult’ reputation and stories of her allegedly petulant behaviour like firing off 5am emails to staff and demanding air freshener be sprayed around musty St George’s Chapel, Windsor, Meghan is said to have authorised five of her closest friends to speak to US People magazine to correct the falsehoods.

The article painted Meghan in a glowing light, while insisting the negative stories about her were lies. But Mr Markle says Meghan’s decision to reveal the private letter in the pages of the magazine left him with no choice but to go public: ‘The letter was presented in a way that vilified me and wasn’t true,’ he said last night. ‘It was presented as her reaching out and writing a loving letter in the hope of healing the rift, but the letter isn’t like that at all. Meghan can’t have it both ways. She can’t use the press to get her message across but hang me out to dry. I have the right to defend myself.’

Experts have claimed the Duchess is walking a dangerous path by allegedly bypassing the palace press office.

[lee martell]

I have read that Harry has quietly returned to England for business trips of short duration just to avoid that tax trap.

That’s possible. It’s also possible that Harry is betting that no American President would ‘dare’ to make a fuss about his taxes, considering that Grandma is The Queen.
He knew Trump would never do it, since both Donald Trump and Queen Liz have been friends for a long time.

Unfortunately, Trump can be too loyal to former friends.
When it came to Hilary Clinton, he never did “Lock Her Up!”

[tired&retired]

The ruling underscores a growing schism between British and American privacy laws, according to media lawyer Mark Stephens. Had the letter been published in the U.S., he says, Meghan wouldn’t even have had a case.

“What we’re seeing is London becoming the privacy capital of the world,” he told CBS News. “I think what it will mean is that American media have an advantage, they’ll be reporting more, the public will learn more, and citizens from this country will start looking to America in order to get the unvarnished news.”

The case is centered on a personal letter that Meghan sent to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, after his no-show at her Royal Wedding. She accused him in the private correspondence of breaking her heart for talking to British tabloids.

The judge’s ruling avoids what might have been a messy public trial pitting Meghan against her father in court.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meghan-markle-mail-on-sunday-privacy-ruling-letter-to-her-dad-tabloid/

[liberalh8ter]

I don't side with her on this. She wrote the letter to him and it's as much his as it WAS hers. He only released the letter AFTER she painted him in a bad light through magazine interviews. In essence, he released it to defend himself from how he was being painted by her and her friends. He had ownership of the letter, she did not. As the article points out, this is a silencing of the press in UK and will only cause people to go to the U.S. with these types of things in the future (assuming the press here isn't shackled similarly or just declines to publish as a favor to certain people across the pond).

[jean michael]

Her father should turn the entire letter over to a US publication. He only released a few excerpts to defend himself.

[Cecily]

“... after his no-show at her Royal Wedding.”

She never invited him to her wedding.

She never made arrangements or allowed Buckingham Palace to make arrangements for his wedding clothing or his travel to and accommodations in London.

He had two heart attacks in the days right before her wedding, and he has shown the hospital bills to prove this.

Her father may not be the greatest person in the world, but he is her father, he doted on her and provided for her, and she paid him back by cutting him out of her life for no great reason as she has done to so many who are no longer useful to her.

She is a mean, selfish, self-centered, greedy, ungrateful, grifting brat, as is her husband Prince Halfwit.

[tired&retired]

“She is a mean, selfish, self-centered, greedy, ungrateful, grifting brat, as is her husband Prince Halfwit.”

And that’s being polite. Tell us what you really think... LOL

[bert]

She’s black trash

[bgill]

MEghan sent the letter to her father. IMO, the letter is his property to do with as he wished. She no longer has any say over what he does with it.

Seems the court is ignoring possession and siding with royalty on this one.

But, hey, the poor little princess gets to play victim again/still in the headlines.