Samantha Markle’s lawsuit accusing her half-sister, the Duchess of Sussex, of spreading ‘malicious lies’ has been dismissed by a judge.
Megan Markle was accused of spreading ‘demonstrably false and malicious lies’ to a ‘global audience’ during the royal couple’s telling interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021.
In the interview, the Duchess explained how she grew up as an only child and did not have a close relationship with her half-sister, Samantha.
Her legal team argued that Meghan was not denying Samantha’s existence, and that her opinion of her childhood relationships was not a “proper subject” to sue for.
A Florida judge agreed and dismissed the lawsuit yesterday, saying the former Suits actress was simply “expressing an opinion about her childhood and her relationship with her half-sister.”
U.S. District Judge Charles Edwards Honeywell said the statement, which was pure opinion, “cannot be proven false.”
She wrote: ‘As a reasonable listener would understand, the defendant merely expresses an opinion of her childhood and her relationship with her half-siblings.
“For example, the court rules that the statement of the accused is not objectively verifiable and is not subject to empirical evidence…. plaintiff cannot plausibly refute defendant’s opinion about her own youth.’
Samantha Markle, who claimed £60,636 in damages, filed the defamation case against her younger sister in March 2022.
She alleged that the Duchess defamed her by giving information to an unauthorized biography called Finding Freedom and discussing their relationship on TV.
Samantha Markle’s lawyer, Peter Ticktin, said at a hearing in February that the book suggested his client was an “opportunist” because she changed her surname to Markle when her half-sister began dating Prince Harry.
Judge Honeywell also ruled that the Duchess could not be held liable for the contents of the book because she had not published it.
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