- According to new legal documents filed Monday, Meghan Markle is suing the publisher of the Mail on Sunday for printing sections of a private letter she sent to her father, Thomas Markle.
- The documents allege that the paper published the "private and confidential" letter during a "time of great personal anguish and distress."
- The letter, which Meghan sent to her father in August 2018, was published in part in February 2019.
Meghan Markle is the latest royal going to court to fight back against what she sees as an invasion of privacy by a tabloid.
U.K.’s Press Association reported Friday on new legal documents filed Monday by the Duchess of Sussex's attorneys in her suit against the publisher of the Mail on Sunday. At the center of Meghan's claim is a "private and confidential" letter to her father, Thomas Markle, that the paper published during what her representatives describe as a "time of great personal anguish and distress."
The private letter, which Meghan’s attorneys say detailed "her intimate thoughts and feelings about her father’s health and her relationship with him at that time," was sent to Thomas Markle in August 2018 and published (although not in its entirety) by the Mail on Sunday and MailOnline in February 2019.
Meghan is represented in the case by the Schillings law firm, which claims that the Mail on Sunday chose to "omit or suppress" important parts of the letter which "intentionally distorted or manipulated" its meaning.
"The letter was obviously private correspondence written by the claimant to her father,” the Schillings' submission says, according to the Press Association, adding that Meghan, "intended the detailed contents of the letter to be private, and certainly did not expect them to be published to the world at large by a national newspaper, and without any warning."
In her suit, Meghan is seeking damages from the Mail on Sunday’s publisher, Associated Newspapers Ltd., for "alleged misuse of private information, copyright infringement, and breach of the Data Protection Act."
Associated Newspapers denies the royal's claims, however, and says that it intends to fight the case.
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