Meghan court case live today

[callmeadoctor]

@madisonbridges

Except she did not defend anything ,did she. It was a throwaway dismissing statement

She's not dismissing it. The world, apart from you apparently, knows that she's saying nicely that Meghan is not telling the truth. That's not racist. Meghan lied in her interview saying it was several conversations with her husband, not her, whilst she was pregnant. Harry said it was one conversation before they were married. Meghan lied in her court documents. That's not a racist statement. That's fact.
Criticism of a biracial person does not mean it's racism in action. Biracial people can do things that deserve criticism.

I am not the only one, plenty of people of colour are not happy about this dismissive statement. It is sad, but some people even shrug and say, well what did you expect? Very sad indeed that the rf, could not prove them wrong and have a different response. People have written articles on, what else did you expect from the rf.

Also, here is another thing. Racism, like say LBQT etc. is an emotional subject that will affect people in a different personal ways. There is always this demand to bring proof, where is your proof? A bit like if someone says they were abused (either emotionally or sexually), they may genuinely be unable to give you all the exact dates because it affects them at an emotional level in different ways.
So Harry was affected by the statement in say January, he may have raised an eyebrow, who knows how he felt. He tells MM in August, she blows a fuse - two people affected in different ways. You remember the time it affected you the most. Anyone who has dealt with trauma or worked with people who did knows this, but for people, somehow, when it comes down to H&M, they become very stringent and nicky picky. And yes, racism is traumatic.

To me it's like asking someone about their abuse situation, it happened, why would I think they should give a blow by blow, dates and times. I'm betting if they did they would be accused of being too co-ordinated anyway. Aaghh, This couple can never win with some people.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

... the law firm Schillings, which acts for Prince Harry and Meghan, said the BBC report that the Queen was not asked for permission to use the name Lilibet was false and defamatory and should not be repeated

(This)was made by the same law firm that stood up in court and said categorically their clients had nothing to do with 'Finding Freedom'

I'd say Schillings must be pretty cross, except I doubt it's the first time a client's lied
Does anyone (@Serenster ?)know what happens in cases such as this? Is it likely they'd refuse future representation?

So, discovering a client has lied to you is a serious matter, and you should consider whether or not you can continue to act for them. Whether the partners (most law firms are partnerships/LLPs) adopt a strict or an “it depends” position on this very much depends on the culture of the firm.

What makes this more serious in this matter is that one of Schillings partners filed a witness statement in court offering her own testimony as evidence that Meghan and Harry had not collaborated with the authors of Finding Freedom. This is something that obviously she cannot have personal knowledge of - she has relied on her client to tell her the position and then signed and filed a witness statement in her own name. This is….not something I would ever have done, and is not a risk that all law firms would countenance (as, if it turned out the client was lying, the lawyer individually, and the firm, is on the hook for it).

So, I would expect there to be some heated discussion among the Schillings partnership as to how they act here. ANL could quite rightly complain about their actions. They will have known about this for a while now (the evidence for the appeal will have been exchanged some time before the appeal hearing) but Schillings may well have decided that it would be prejudicial to their client to withdraw before the appeal, but they may still do so once the outcome is known. (I have seen a firm do this before, which I think is ridiculous, because you are either ethically compromised or not, but as I said, law firm cultures vary).

@prh47bridge. I agree that the MoS won't win their case. But they've achieved what they wanted to. And that is discredit Meghan and cast doubt on what she says in future. All of this will come back regularly. "Remember when she lied about the book? Remember when she lied in court? Remember when she crafted a letter to her father, designed to pull on the heart strings and to get her message out there?" Do I think this will harm her longterm? No. And I don't think it should. None if it is particularly egregious. But will it be easier to dismiss what she says, poke fun at her? Yes, I think it will.

@rubicscubicle in what way is “recollections may vary” racist? It may be dismissive, but it is aimed at Harry too. It just means that things are not always remembered in the same way. How can that in any way be taken as racist? It could be said to absolutely anyone who has a different version of something that happens. It could even be directed at the Queen herself 🤷‍♀️

Posted too soon. It was presumably also meant to include anyone in the palace who was involved in the incidents with HaM, so was it racist towards other members of the RF? I don’t understand that logic at all.

What makes this more serious in this matter is that one of Schillings partners filed a witness statement in court offering her own testimony as evidence that Meghan and Harry had not collaborated with the authors of Finding Freedom. This is something that obviously she cannot have personal knowledge of - she has relied on her client to tell her the position and then signed and filed a witness statement in her own name. This is….not something I would ever have done, and is not a risk that all law firms would countenance (as, if it turned out the client was lying, the lawyer individually, and the firm, is on the hook for it).

This sounds odd, aside from the legal reasons you’ve given against it, what weight would it have?
A client gives a sworn statement stating X.
The lawyer gives a sworn statement stating that the client said X.

Isn’t the second statement, from the lawyer, sort of a given? In that if the client has given that statement, we can assume that’s what they told the lawyer. So if you have the client’s statement, why would you need the one from the lawyer?

It may be dismissive, but it is aimed at Harry too

It's aimed squarely at him, isn't it? He was the one talking to one of his relatives, and it is his account of it the Meghan heard. Did he relay it accurately? Did he relay it fully?

(After all, just hypothesising here, what if the discussion with Harry was about the risk of being ginger? Still about skin tone)

Meghan's failure to inform the High Court that her former comms secretary provided some information for an unauthorised biography is, in my view, irrelevant to the case

I agree it’s probably irrelevant to the copyright case, but she also based a claim upon misuse of her private information. ANL’s defence to this claim includes the fact that any expectation of privacy in her letter has been compromised by her conduct in permitting information about her own private life to be placed into the public domain via Finding Freedom, and she does not object to details of her own (or others, like Samantha Markle’s) private information being publicly disclosed, provided the disclosure is favourable to her. ANL has now been able to provide direct evidence of this.

The Mail are doing this because they want the circus of a trial so they can use it to try and damage Meghan's reputation. They hope that some of the mud they throw at her will stick so that they can sell more newspapers

To be fair, ANL are defending their claim, as they are entitled to do, and have not been going to town with coverage of the developments this week - compare the Mail to the Sun, for example. In any event, Meghan is hoist by her own petard here - she brought the case, she lied about her involvement with Finding Freedom. No-one made her do either of these things. If she’s ending up with egg on her face she should totally be examining her own choices here.

I am sure their lawyers would have told them prior to publication that they could face a claim for invasion of privacy and breach of copyright, and that they would probably lose. They went ahead and published anyway because they thought the opportunity to destroy her reputation would be worth it in sensation and increased profits. They want to destroy Meghan so that they can profit from it.

It’s unlikely (imo) that they will win the case but the pair are certainly not innocent victims, in the background they are busy manipulating situations to their advantage.

I expect it’s more a case of ANL don’t like the anti media/controlling the narrative spiel and the blatant hypocrisy that’s at play. ie. It’s ok for MM to feed contents of the letter to her friends so they can speak to ‘People’ magazine ( and it would be naive to think that her closest confidantes would not run this past MM first) but not for the paper to print similar.

As I mentioned yesterday, it seems they are allowed to:
A) lie in court
B) make mysogynistic references
C) slate their families in public
D) make public statements that are ‘their truth’ but not the actual truth.

But woe be tide anyone that pulls them up on this, they will be cut out, threatened with court action or discredited.

And so here we are, a situation where they have met their match in ANL and apologies have had to be made.

I am sure their lawyers would have told them prior to publication that they could face a claim for invasion of privacy and breach of copyright, and that they would probably lose. They went ahead and published anyway because they thought the opportunity to destroy her reputation would be worth it in sensation and increased profits. They want to destroy Meghan so that they can profit from it

Presumably you would make the same comment about People Magazine, who initially published the existence of the letter and its contents? Yet no-one is suing them.

Presumably you would make the same comment about People Magazine, who initially published the existence of the letter and its contents? Yet no-one is suing them

Yes, that's odd. I would have thought that it should be both or neither, or if doing one, do the one which did it first (ie People)

But of course People is US based, so perhaps there is a legal reason H&M made that omission?

Sky new and the BBC have both focussed (the BBC entirely) that M's text messages reveal that harry was "constantly berated" by the RF. No mention by the BBC about Meghans apology, JK or the revealing text messages

@twinklystar23

Sky new and the BBC have both focussed (the BBC entirely) that M's text messages reveal that harry was "constantly berated" by the RF. No mention by the BBC about Meghans apology, JK or the revealing text messages

I noticed that. Appalling. I wonder why

@twinklystar23 they reported in it yesterday. These text messages are newly released today

@Serenster. You're obviously a legal person so can I ask, with all this new information coming out, do you think the first judge was justified in finding for MM so quickly? Maybe these judges will just dismiss the appeal anyway, but should the judge have weighed up all these arguments as well? Would the judge have had these papers submitted to him so he knew the general facts and arguments before the case began? (A bit like Judge Judy!)
Thanks.

@twinklystar23

Sky new and the BBC have both focussed (the BBC entirely) that M's text messages reveal that harry was "constantly berated" by the RF. No mention by the BBC about Meghans apology, JK or the revealing text messages

BBC are reporting every day, and the JK and apology were in the previous day's article

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59242093

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59242093.amp

There you go

XPost 🤣

@twinklystar23

Sky new and the BBC have both focussed (the BBC entirely) that M's text messages reveal that harry was "constantly berated" by the RF. No mention by the BBC about Meghans apology, JK or the revealing text messages

If I click on the UK royal family topic on bbc news, of the top 4 stories, 3 are Meghan, the fourth is the queen attending Remembrance Sunday. These are all yesterday’s stories and the headlines are “Meghan weighed up calling father “daddy”” “Meghan apologises to court over briefings for book” “Meghan aide regrets not giving evidence sooner”

So it is covered, and definitely the apology one was on the front page of the bbc news app yesterday.

[quote madisonbridges]@Serenster. You're obviously a legal person so can I ask, with all this new information coming out, do you think the first judge was justified in finding for MM so quickly? Maybe these judges will just dismiss the appeal anyway, but should the judge have weighed up all these arguments as well? Would the judge have had these papers submitted to him so he knew the general facts and arguments before the case began? (A bit like Judge Judy!)
Thanks.[/quote]
Honestly, in my experience a summary judgment application is always a 50:50 call. Judges always have their own views and preferences. Justice Warby obviously felt strongly that the claim as pleaded was strong and the defences were weak. Another judge/the Court of Appeal can easily take a different view.

@Serenster

I am sure their lawyers would have told them prior to publication that they could face a claim for invasion of privacy and breach of copyright, and that they would probably lose. They went ahead and published anyway because they thought the opportunity to destroy her reputation would be worth it in sensation and increased profits. They want to destroy Meghan so that they can profit from it

Presumably you would make the same comment about People Magazine, who initially published the existence of the letter and its contents? Yet no-one is suing them.

And it’s ok for the friends to breach Meghan’s privacy, because it’s favourable towards her and against her father. But when it’s her father defending himself .. (regardless of ANL printing the actual letter) he’s the worst human being for it.

I’d be furious if I was in the public eye and my friends did this without my permission, no matter how well intentioned. Her friends blabbing to People magazine about her father is what started this whole thing. I think both legal teams agreed TM had a right to reply, so there would still have been an article of sorts from him about this even if extracts of the letter were not printed.
This is why I would bet my life she allowed her friends to do this article and reference the letter. Because she still defends them even when they are the catalyst for this situation but has disowned her father for not much worse.

@Serenster

I am sure their lawyers would have told them prior to publication that they could face a claim for invasion of privacy and breach of copyright, and that they would probably lose. They went ahead and published anyway because they thought the opportunity to destroy her reputation would be worth it in sensation and increased profits. They want to destroy Meghan so that they can profit from it

Presumably you would make the same comment about People Magazine, who initially published the existence of the letter and its contents? Yet no-one is suing them.

Erm, People magazine did not print the letter.

@prh47bridge

A few thoughts.

The Mail's argument that the letter was intended for publication is clearly irrelevant to the copyright claim. If I write a novel and the Mail gets hold of a copy of the manuscript before it is published, does that allow them to print large sections of it without my permission and without compensation? Of course not.

Meghan's failure to inform the High Court that her former comms secretary provided some information for an unauthorised biography is, in my view, irrelevant to the case. It is likely that this information would have been part of disclosure had the case gone to trial, but the judge stopped the case before it got that far on the grounds that publishing her private letter was clearly excessive and unlawful. It seems highly unlikely that any co-operation she or others around her gave to an unauthorised biography would have altered that judgement.

She will not be prosecuted for perjury (and nor would anyone else in this situation) as, in order to get a guilty verdict, the prosecution would have to show that she knowingly gave false information as opposed to giving information that she genuinely, but mistakenly, believed was true, and that this information was significant to the case. In my view the prosecution would fail on both fronts.

Why are Associated Newspapers trying to overturn the verdict? Is it because they think they will win at trial? I doubt it. I really don't rate their chances even if the Court of Appeal does send it to trial. The Mail are doing this because they want the circus of a trial so they can use it to try and damage Meghan's reputation. They hope that some of the mud they throw at her will stick so that they can sell more newspapers. After all, that has worked well for them up to now.

I am sure their lawyers would have told them prior to publication that they could face a claim for invasion of privacy and breach of copyright, and that they would probably lose. They went ahead and published anyway because they thought the opportunity to destroy her reputation would be worth it in sensation and increased profits. They want to destroy Meghan so that they can profit from it.

The most measured and correct post I have seen so far.

@Serenster

I am sure their lawyers would have told them prior to publication that they could face a claim for invasion of privacy and breach of copyright, and that they would probably lose. They went ahead and published anyway because they thought the opportunity to destroy her reputation would be worth it in sensation and increased profits. They want to destroy Meghan so that they can profit from it

Presumably you would make the same comment about People Magazine, who initially published the existence of the letter and its contents? Yet no-one is suing them.

No, I wouldn't. People Magazine published only a short extract which they attributed to one of Meghan's friends. Even if this extract was accurate, it was short enough to fall under "fair dealing" - definitely in the US which has a far broader interpretation but probably in the UK too. Also, as it seems Meghan authorised her friends to talk to People Magazine, there is no claim for misuse of private information (and again, even if Meghan had not authorised any disclosure, such a claim would be much harder to win in the US due to the way the courts there interpret the First Amendment).

Even if we take all that away, Meghan's lawyers, on her behalf, accepted that the Mail could legitimately have run a story about the letter outlining its contents. So, in their view (with which I tend to concur), the article in People Magazine was on the right side of the line.