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Meghan Markle was granted a court docket win Tuesday in a defamation case filed by her half-sister Samantha Markle.
In a 58-page court docket ruling Monday, U.S. District Lawyer Choose Charlene Honeywell dismissed the case after Samantha claimed that Markle had defamed her in interviews, together with the one she did with Oprah in 2021, and Netflix’s Harry and Meghan the next yr.
Choose Honeywell stated within the ruling that the case was dismissed as a result of Samantha “didn’t establish any statements that would help a declare for defamation or defamation-by-implication,” and that Samantha merely “disagrees” with Meghan’s “opinions somewhat than statements of reality.”
“We’re happy with the court docket’s ruling dismissing the case,” Meghan’s lawyer, Michael J. Kump, tells Rolling Stone.
Samantha, who’s Meghan’s half-sister by way of their father Thomas, received’t have the ability to refile the lawsuit after in search of $75,000 in damages from Markle.
In response to Individuals, Samantha initially claimed that the then Duchess of Sussex had made defamatory statements by saying she “grew up as an solely baby,” although the 2 “have been shut” throughout childhood. She additionally referred to the chapter “A Downside Like Samantha” from Discovering Freedom, an unauthorized biography about Prince Harry and Meghan’s love story.
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Final March, Meghan earned a court docket win when Choose Honeywell said that she couldn’t “be held chargeable for statements in a ebook that she didn’t publish.”
“As an affordable listener would perceive it, Defendant merely expresses an opinion about her childhood and her relationship together with her half-siblings,” Honeywell wrote within the paperwork on the time. “Thus, the Court docket finds that Defendant’s assertion shouldn’t be objectively verifiable or topic to empirical proof.”