By Sheila Mckenzie-
Meghan Markle has won a legal battle with the publisher of The Mail On Sunday over a letter to her estranged father.
The Duchess of Sussex, 40, sued Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over five articles that reproduced parts of a “personal and private” letter to Thomas Markle, 77, in August 2018.
Following victory for Megahn in the first hearing, Associated Newspapers Limited lodged an appeal against the granting of summary judgment in relation to the duchess’ claims for misuse of private information and infringement of copyright in relation to the publication of a hand-written letter to her father, Thomas Markle.
The appeal was today dismissed, drawing a line over the legal battle which will now see The Associated Limited Newspapers pick up the pieces.
Giving a summary of the decision, judge Sir Geoffrey Vos said: “The Court of Appeal upheld the judge’s decision that the duchess had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the letter.
“Those contents were personal, private and not matters of legitimate public interest.
“The articles in the Mail on Sunday interfered with the duchess’ reasonable expectation of privacy and were not a justified or proportionate means of correcting inaccuracies about the letter.”
“The judge had been in as good a position as any trial judge to look at the article in People magazine, the letter and The Mail On Sunday articles to decide if publication of the contents of the letter was appropriate to rebut the allegations against Mr Markle.
“The judge had correctly decided that, whilst it might have been proportionate to publish a very small part of the letter for that purpose, it was not necessary to publish half the contents of the letter as ANL had done.”
Responding to the ruling, Meghan said in a statement: “This is a victory not just for me, but for anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right.
Explaining the decisions he said: “It was hard to see what evidence could have been adduced at trial that would have altered the situation.
The actress-turned-royal won her case earlier this year when a High Court judge ruled in her favour without a full trial.
After the three-day hearing in November, Associated Newspapers argued that the case should go to a trial on Meghan’s claims against the publisher – including breach of privacy and copyright.
Three senior judges handed their decision on that appeal at 10am on Thursday in which the appeal was dismissed.
Victory
Responding to the ruling, Meghan said in a statement: “This is a victory not just for me, but for anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right.
“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.
“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.”
“The duchess’s statement continued: “The courts have held the defendant to account and my hope is that we all begin to do the same.
“Because as far removed as it may seem from your personal life, it’s not. 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.”
Deeply Personal
Meghan’s barristers argued that the letter was “deeply personal” and “self-evidently was intended to be kept private”.
In her written evidence, Meghan denied she thought it likely that her father would leak the letter but “merely recognised that this was a possibility”.
Jason Knauf, former communications secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, claimed in a witness statement that Meghan wrote the letter with the understanding that it could be leaked.
He said she sent him an early draft of the letter stating: “Obviously everything I have drafted is with the understanding that it could be leaked so I have been meticulous in my word choice, but please do let me know if anything stands out for you as a liability.”
In further texts released by the court, the duchess can be seen expressing her frustration about the response of the royal family, describing them as “constantly berating” Harry.
The Court of Appeal also heard that Mr Knauf provided information to the authors of the biography Finding Freedom – Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand – leading to Meghan apologising for misleading the court about whether he had given information.
Meghan told the court: “I apologise to the court for the fact I had not remembered these exchanges … I had absolutely no wish or intention to mislead the defendant or the court.”
Lack Of Clear Focus
Lawyers representing the Mail On Sundat were criticised for a lack of a ‘clear focus on the factual and legal errors’ said to have been made by a High Court judge in granting summary judgment to the Duchess of Sussex.
Associated Newspapers Limited’s appeal against the granting of summary judgment in relation to the duchess’ claims for misuse of private information and infringement of copyright in relation to the publication of a hand-written letter to her father, Thomas Markle, was dismissed today.
Giving the judgment of the Court of Appeal in HRH The Duchess of Sussex v Associated Newspapers Limited, the master of the rolls Sir Geoffrey Vos said: ‘It would not be an exaggeration to say that no expense has been spared in advancing and resisting the appeal. Unfortunately, however, it rapidly appeared in oral argument that what was lacking was a clear focus on the factual and legal errors that the judge was alleged to have made.’
Associated Newspapers had argued that an earlier article about the duchess in US magazine People misled the public about Mr Markle’s behaviour and the contents of the duchess’ letter to him.
Granting summary judgment, Mr Justice Warby (now Lord Justice Warby) said he was in as good a position as a trial judge to assess ‘the extent to which the People article misled the public about the [duchess’] letter in a way that … made it relevant, necessary and proportionate to make the disclosures’.
In the Court of Appeal’s ruling, Vos said: ‘Despite prompting from the bench, Associated Newspapers has not, even after a two-and-a-half day hearing, clearly identified the triable issues that falsify this reasoning. Obviously, if the judge applied the wrong test, that is one thing, but on an appeal from the grant of summary judgment, the first question is usually to identify the factual issues that require oral and documentary evidence to be fairly resolved.’
Vos also said: ‘The parties have complicated and elaborated the relatively simple issues raised by this appeal. The grounds of appeal, for which Lord Justice Bean granted permission, have been neither followed nor mentioned much in argument.