Meghan Markle’s half-sister Samantha Markle’s appeal could be costly

Samantha Markle‘s two-year defamation case against half-sister Meghan Markle could be done for good after the case was dismissed with prejudice.

‘The judge says that even if everything you say is true according to the law, it is not defamation. You don’t have a case, it can’t go to a jury,” lawyer Neama Rahmaniwho is not involved in the case, exclusively told We weekly on Tuesday, March 12. “The judge ruled that Samantha has no case under the law and the case was dismissed with prejudice, meaning the case cannot be amended or refiled. The only thing Samantha can do is appeal if she wants to move forward.”

Rahmani added that if Samantha, 49, decided to continue with the appeal process, she would have to go through the Court of Appeal, which could be a costly decision.

“If the appeals court reverses the dismissal, Samantha can resume the case in court,” he explained. “The call will cost thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.”

Samantha, 59, originally sued Meghan, 42, in March 2022 after her CBS interview with husband Prince Harry in November 2021, claiming her sister had lied about her childhood. (Both Samantha and Meghan are the daughters of Thomas Markle.)

Meghan scored a legal victory on Tuesday when the judge dismissed the case two years later. This is evident from court documents obtained by UsRight Charlene Edwards Honeywell found that at this point, her third attempt to amend her complaint, Samantha had “failed to identify any statements that might support a claim for defamation or implied slander.”

“If you look at defamation, it has to be a statement about a person. It must be published, it must be untrue,” Rahmani said. “But what we are actually dealing with here is an expression of opinion.”

During the sitdown, Meghan claimed she hadn’t seen Samantha in almost 20 years. The legal expert explained that the two instances that Samantha claimed were defamatory were Meghan’s opinion “which usually cannot be defamatory.”

“Meghan made two statements. That one grew up as an only child, even though she had a half-sister [and] didn’t really have a good relationship,” Rahmani said. ‘She hadn’t seen her for many years. So the judge said: that’s her opinion about her childhood and upbringing. That is not defamatory.”

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Meghan also claimed that her older sister changed her surname to Markle after she started dating Harry. The judge also ruled in a similar manner on this statement. Before Tuesday’s ruling, the judge gave Samantha the opportunity to change her lawsuit, but she did not proceed.

“The judge gave Samantha the opportunity to amend her lawsuit, to really clarify or really specify what was defamatory. And when Samantha failed to do so, the case was dropped,” Rahmani said Us. “Now that Samantha wants to appeal, she can go to the Court of Appeal, but that does not strike me as a strong defamation case.”

Meghan’s lawyer Michael J. Kump told Us in a statement: “We are pleased with the Court’s ruling dismissing this case.”