Meghan Markle's lawsuit against the British tabloid press is not going well for her in the first round. The Duchess of Sussex had to drop a claim that the Daily Mail exploited her dad, Thomas Markle, to use against her.
According to Tatler, Meghan's legal team recently submitted an amendment to the lawsuit, which cited that the Daily Mail and its publisher, the Associated Newspapers, have manipulated and exploited her dad to harass and humiliate her. The judge struck out this claim in a hearing held virtually on April 24, with Meghan and Prince Harry in Los Angeles and the High Court in London.
Consequently, the judge also struck out Meghan's claims that Daily Mail's omission of certain parts of her letter to her father, which the publication printed, was a dishonest attempt because they had an agenda against the Duchess of Sussex. The judge said that these allegations were not the "heart of the case" thus he considered these irrelevant. There is, however, an option to revisit these claims if it is warranted in the course of the hearing.
A spokesperson for Meghan's legal team, however, said that despite the amendments to their claim, the lawsuit has not changed and will still proceed. They said that they will fight for the violation of Meghan's privacy and prove that the tabloid crossed legal boundaries in their stories against the Duchess of Sussex.
Daily Mail published parts of Meghan's painful letter to her dad in February 2019. The Duchess of Sussex sent this letter on August 2018, several months after she and Prince Harry were married. Thomas was not able to attend the wedding because of a health issue and his problems with Meghan and the royals started brewing.
Meghan's lawyers argued that the letter, which detailed the duchess' deepest private thoughts and feelings, was not meant to be publicized in the newspaper. The lawyers also said that the contents of the letters were edited to change its meaning.
The actual trial of Meghan's lawsuit against the British tabloid press will begin in late 2020 or early next year. There are speculations that Meghan and her dad will have to face each other in court, if in-person hearings amid the coronavirus pandemic are already permitted by then. If so, it would be the first time the daughter and father have seen each other since their estrangement in 2018.
