Meghan Markle Could Be Dragged Back Into Privacy Battle After Newspaper Gets Green Light To Appeal
Even though Meghan Markle won her privacy case earlier this year, ANL (Associated Newspapers Limited) — which publishes the MailOnline and the Mail on Sunday — has now been given the green light to appeal both the privacy and copyright rulings, The Sun reported.
The 39-year-old actress sued ANL after they published parts of a letter she sent to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, in 2018.
Earlier this year, 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."
"It was, in short, a personal and private letter. The majority of what was published was about the claimant's own behavior, her feelings of anguish about her father's behavior — as she saw it — and the resulting rift between them," he added. "These are inherently private and personal matters. The claimant had a reasonable expectation that the contents of the letter would remain private."
She also won a "summary judgment" application, meaning she wouldn't need to go to trial.
After the trial, Meghan 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 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."
ANL lawyers argued that Jason Knauf was the co-author of the letter, which meant it belong to the Crown. However, the court said that "it was the duchess' letter alone."
In May, Lord Justice Warby said Knauf's position was "unequivocal and definitive, not uncertain or provisional."
