Meghan desperate to ‘avoid’ court case making trial as financial cost would be ‘enormous’ | Royal | News (Reports)

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Legal experts have suggested that Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex’s request for the two-day summary judgement hearing currently taking place at the High Court for her case against Associated Newspapers and the Mail on Sunday is potentially “the cost of a trial financially would be enormous [and] they want to try and avoid that, but also the reputational cost as well”. The royal brought the claim over an article which reproduced parts of a handwritten letter sent to her father Thomas Markle in 2018 without her permission. If a judge rules in her favour in the current hearing it would see the Duchess win her case without a full trial, something which Sky News Royal Correspondent Rhiannon Mills explained could be vital.

Ms Mills told viewers: “What’s interesting is when you speak to legal experts, they say there’s a number of reasons why they’d want this summary judgement hearing.

“Number one: the cost of a trial financially would be enormous.

“They want to try and avoid that, but also the reputational cost as well.

“Over the next couple of days, it will simply be the lawyers who will be fighting this one out. We won’t hear from any witnesses.”

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She continued: “Whereas with a big show trial that this could potentially become, you would hear from Meghan, her father, her friends and also maybe Palace staff. So reputational damage could be enormous.

“But, as one legal expert put it to me, this is certainly not, over the next couple of days, going to be the show trial that it could become.

“Instead it’s going to be the barristers who are going to be the stars of the show as they outline their case.

“The stars certainly won’t be Meghan and her father.”

The trial was originally scheduled to start this month, but that changed last October when the judge agreed to adjourn any trial and to grant the summary judgement hearing.

This is essentially asking for a judgement to be given on the grounds that Associated Newspapers has no real prospect of successfully defending their case against her legal claim.

Justin Rushbrooke QC, who is representing the Duchess, told the court today: “At its heart, it is a very straightforward case about the unlawful publication of a private letter.

“We say that, quite simply, the publication to millions of readers of the Mail on Sunday and MailOnline of extensive extracts from a private and, indeed, deeply personal letter written by the claimant to her father that took place on February 10, 2019 was a plain and serious breach of her right to privacy.”

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Ms Mills told Sky: “In essence, they believe that the defence’s case simply does not stand up, and they can prove that the newspaper was in the wrong.

“She’s suing them for privacy, breach of copyright restrictions and also breach of data protection.

“So over the next couple of days, remotely, via video conference, not in court because of COVID restrictions, we’re going to see Mr Justice Warby listening to the legal arguments from both sides of this case.”

If Meghan’s legal team are unsuccessful then the case will go to trial as normal.

This would take place in autumn this year.

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