Meghan Markle Court Case: British Tabloid Plans To Appeal Over Privacy Lawsuit, Duchess Wins $627,000 For Legal Costs
British tabloid the Mail on Sunday announced on Tuesday, March 2, that they will plan to appeal over Meghan Markle’s privacy lawsuit case after they published a letter she wrote to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, in 2018.
In written submissions, Associated Newspapers’ lawyer Antony White asked the High Court Judge to grant permission to appeal, saying the bid to overturn Mark Warby’s ruling "would have a real prospect of success."
In response, attorneys for the former actress, 39, demanded the publisher to give back the letters and destroy any electronic copies. Additionally, they asked the judge to order the Mail on Sunday to remove five articles from its website and to run a statement about the Duchess’ victory.
"The defendant defiantly continues to do the very acts which the court has held are unlawful," Ian Mill, an attorney for Meghan, said. "The defendant has failed to deliver up copies it has of the letter such that the threat to infringe and further to misuse her private information remains real and, inexplicably, the defendant has still not removed the infringing articles from MailOnline."
Meghan's lawyers are requesting up to $2.1 million from the lawsuit and asked the judge to order Associated Newspapers (ANL) to pay £750,000 towards the legal costs within the next two weeks.
"The High Court today ruled that the Mail on Sunday should pay 90% of legal costs ($1.87m) incurred by Meghan's side for her privacy and copyright case. Justice Warby calculated the sum based 'on matters on which she succeeded.' The Mail’s publisher ANL had hoped to pay just 75%," royal reporter Omid Scobie wrote on Twitter.
"After stating their grounds of appeal, the Mail on Sunday has been denied permission to appeal last month’s verdict. The Mail’s publisher—who have been ordered to initially pay £450k ($627k) of Meghan’s legal costs in the next 14 days—can still apply to the Court of Appeal," he continued.
"£450,000 [$627,000] is about as generous as the claimant could expect in all the circumstances," Warby said.
The Suits alum sued Associated Newspapers Limited for invasion of privacy and copyright infringement after they published a letter she wrote to Thomas before she married Prince Harry.
Last month, Warby ruled that the publisher infringed on Meghan’s copyright. "The claimant had a reasonable expectation that the contents of the Letter would remain private. The Mail Articles interfered with that reasonable expectation," Warby said, adding that Meghan's letter to her father was "manifestly excessive and hence unlawful."
However, Warby said there should be a “limited trial” to go over whether Meghan was “the sole author” of the letter. The trial will take place in the fall.
Following the trial, Meghan spoke out about the ongoing ordeal. “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 dehumanizing 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,” she told ET Canada in a statement.
