Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, must give testimony underneath oath as a part of a defamation case introduced by Samantha Markle, the Duchess’s half-sister, a decide has dominated.
The couple filed a movement to dam their depositions within the case, during which Samantha is looking for damages over what she claims are “malicious lies” instructed about her throughout Harry and Meghan’s 2020 televised Oprah Winfrey interview and the 2020 biography Finding Freedom.
Presiding district courtroom decide Charlene Edwards Honeywell dismissed the movement Tuesday, ruling that Meghan “does not show that unusual circumstances justify the requested stay, or that prejudice or an undue burden will result if the Court does not impose a stay,” Britain’s PA Media information company reported, as cited by CNN.
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“Defendant Markle does not satisfy the high standard required to stay discovery pending the resolution of a dispositive motion.”
A deposition is a proper testimony from a witness or somebody concerned in a case, given outdoors of courtroom however underneath oath.
Samantha, 58, is suing Meghan for US$75,000, claiming defamation within the interview when her youthful half-sister stated she grew up as “an only child.”
FILE – Samantha Markle, Meghan Markle’s half-sister, is interviewed on U.Okay. present ‘The Wright Stuff.’.
The Wright Stuff/YouTube
The “false and malicious lies,” the submitting says, subjected Samantha “to humiliation, shame and hatred on a worldwide scale,” and unfold “lies worldwide” about their father, Thomas Markle.
Samantha moreover accuses Meghan of misrepresenting their sibling relationship, alleging that Meghan seemed that they have been “virtual strangers” rising up and that Samantha had “no relationship whatsoever with her sister Meghan.”
The declare contends that Meghan had “frequent and regular contact with her sister Samantha throughout her childhood,” stories BBC, and that Meghan constructed a “false rags to royalty narrative” that was damaging to each Thomas and Samantha.
She additionally denies Meghan’s declare that Samantha modified her final identify to Markle after information first broke in 2018 that Meghan and Prince Harry have been relationship.
Peter Ticktin, a lawyer for Samantha, instructed The Independent on Tuesday in a press release that, “as to whether we will need Harry’s deposition, that decision is yet to be made.”
“Obviously, if the Duchess should want to call him, we would need to take his deposition,” he stated. “Otherwise, we will probably still want to inquire as to some issues.”
The outlet stories {that a} mediator has additionally been appointed within the case with the hope of resolving the lawsuit and not using a trial.
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The deliberate depositions come following the Sussexes’ Netflix collection, Harry & Meghan, and the publication of Harry’s revealing memoir Spare final month.
In the documentary collection, the previous Suits actor claimed she hadn’t seen Samantha “for over a decade” and had little to no relationship along with her.
“I don’t know your middle name. I don’t know your birthday,” Meghan instructed the cameras. “You’re telling these people you raised me, and you coined me ‘Princess Pushy?’ I hadn’t had a fallout with her. We didn’t have a closeness to be able to have that. And I wanted a sister!”
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