Samantha Markle’s lawyers are preparing a bid to overturn Meghan Markle’s court victory over libel allegations relating to the Oprah Winfrey interview and the royal’s Netflix show.
The Duchess of Sussex told Oprah she was brought up as an only child while Samantha changed her last name back to Markle “only when I started dating Harry.”
Samantha’s lawyers argued in a civil lawsuit that the comments were “disparaging, hurtful, and false” statements that suggested she is “a stranger, a liar, and a . . . deceptive fame-seeking imposter with avaricious intentions.”
Meghan won the initial case, but Samantha has taken the lawsuit to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal, where her lawyers have been given a July deadline for filing their initial brief.
They have given an initial indication of where the battle lines will be drawn in a court filing, seen by Newsweek, which reads: “Cumulative inferences and remarks made by [Meghan] have caused a cumulative meaning, which the court did not consider.”
Among the other comments cited are remarks Meghan made in her Netflix show, Harry & Meghan, including: “I was with my mom during the week and with my dad on the weekends. And my dad lived alone, he had two adult children who had moved out of his house.”
“I don’t remember seeing her when I was a kid at my dad’s house,” Meghan continued, “if and when they would come around.”
Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell’s original ruling dismissed the case, stating that Meghan “barely mentions [Samantha], to say only that at some point during [Meghan’s] childhood, [Samantha] moved out of her father’s house.
“It is not plausible that [Samantha] would be exposed to hatred, ridicule, or contempt as a result of this statement.”
Samantha’s lawyers will tie their appeal to the notion Meghan was constructing a broader attack across multiple interviews on her sister’s status as a figure in a position to comment on her life.
Meghan’s lawyers have indicated they will fight the appeal by arguing the judge followed normal procedure in what they view as a routing libel case: “To the contrary, this is a garden-variety defamation action involving the application of well-established Eleventh Circuit precedent, which the District Court followed.”
Meghan will be hoping this is Samantha’s final roll of the dice and that it fails quickly and cleanly, bringing to an end a saga that has rumbled on since March 2022.
Back then, Meghan’s lawyer, Michael Kump, said in a statement: “This baseless and absurd lawsuit is just a continuation of a pattern of disturbing behavior. We will give it the minimum attention necessary, which is all it deserves.”
The subsequent two years have, however, required a greater degree of attention than perhaps that initial response suggested.
