Meghan Markle again finds herself in another legal mud
Meghan Markle's legal victory over her sister Samantha may be short-lived, as Samantha again prepares to take her case to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal.
Meghan Markle is once again facing a potential court battle as her sister, Samantha Markle, “readies revenge” and prepares to challenge a previous defamation lawsuit that ruled in the duchess' favour.
Samantha is set to take her case to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal, and her lawyers must file their initial brief by this month, per Express UK. She originally filed the case against Meghan in March 2022.
Samantha's legal team argues that the court failed to consider the “cumulative” meaning of Meghan's remarks, which they claim were “disparaging, hurtful, and false” and the Sussexes lamented Samantha as “a stranger, a liar, and…a deceptive fame-seeking imposter with avaricious intentions.”
“Cumulative inferences and remarks made by [Meghan] have caused a cumulative meaning, which the court did not consider,” the court documents say.
In March 2024, Meghan secured a legal victory when Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell dismissed Samantha's defamation case against her citing the duchess “barely mentions [Samantha], to say only that at some point during [Meghan's] childhood, [Samantha] moved out of her father's house.”
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Samantha has filed a defamation lawsuit against Meghan in 2022
Samantha had accused Meghan of defamation and defamation by implication, primarily based on statements Meghan made during her interview with Oprah Winfrey, where she suggested she grew up as an only child and she started using the Markle surname “when I [Meghan] started dating Harry.” Samantha was seeking a minimum of $75,000 in damages.
“I was with my mom during the week and with my dad on the weekends,” the Suits star said i their Netflix documentary. “And my dad lived alone, he had two adult children who had moved out of his house.”
She added, “I don't remember seeing her [Samantha] when I was a kid at my dad's house, if and when they would come around.”
The judge cited that Samantha “failed to identify any statements that could support a claim for defamation.”
Judge dismissed Samantha's case with ‘prejudice’
Judge Honeywell found the claim that Samantha only reverted to using the Markle surname after Meghan's relationship with Prince Harry became public to be "substantially true," based on the evidence presented.
“That Plaintiff used one last name and then the name Markle soon after reports of Defendant's relationship with Prince Harry were published is substantially true, based on the exhibits in the record, of which the Court has taken judicial notice,” Judge Honeywell wrote in her ruling.
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Samantha also highlighted other statements in the royal biography Finding Freedom and the Netflix series Harry & Meghan as part of her case. However, the judge dismissed the case “with prejudice.”
“Plaintiff's claims will be dismissed with prejudice, as she has failed to identify any statements that could support a claim for defamation or defamation-by-implication by this point, her third try at amending her complaint, in either the book Finding Freedom, the Netflix series Harry & Meghan, or Defendant and her husband's hour-long televised CBS Interview,” the judge concluded.
