A London judge on Friday dismissed a chunk of a lawsuit brought by Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, against the UK tabloid News on Sunday for publishing excepts of a letter to her father.
The lawsuit filed in October against Associated Newspapers cited invasion of privacy and copyright infringement for the publication of the letter in August 2018, after she had married Prince Harry.
According to media reports, Judge Mark Warby today dismissed claims that Associated Newspapers acted “dishonestly” by quoting only passages of the letter, and that the publisher inflated a dispute between Markle and her father, Thomas Markle, as part of an effort to write negative stories about her.
Warby said those portions were not relevant to the suit, which claims American Newspapers illegaly used private information and breached the UK’s Data Protection Act. He said the dismissed portions could be revisited as the case progresses.
Associated Newspapers, which also owns Daily Mail, MailOnline and Metro, has denied all charges in the suit. Lawyers for Markle told media outlets today that the judge’s ruling did not change the “core elements” of the case.
Markle and Prince Harry, who have split from the UK Royal Family, have been scrapping with the UK tabs over coverage of them, with Harry engaged in a separate lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun and the owners of fellow tabloid The Daily Mirror claiming they hacked his voicemail messages.
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