Meghan Markle’s legal team criticized her half-sister for “erroneously” failing to use her royal title when suing for defamation.
Samantha Markle has been fighting a years-long libel battle that has repeatedly faltered and is now at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The saga revolves around Meghan’s comments to Orpah Winfrey and the content of her Netflix series Harry & Meghan.
However, one notable oddity surrounding the case is that it has been waged from the first moment to last with Meghan’s name written using the technically incorrect style common in the media.
On paper, the royal is Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, rather than Meghan Markle. News organizations, including Newsweek, refer to her using her pre-marriage name because that is how she is known to the public. Kate Middleton, formally Catherine, Princess of Wales, incurs the same fate.
For years, her legal team has done little more than describe her as the Duchess of Sussex while noting that she was “sued as Meghan Markle.”
The error has been so widespread in the filings that even the original judge in the case, Charlene Edwards Honeywell, sitting in the Middle District of Florida, has at points referred to the royal as “Meghan Markle.”
Now, though, more than two years after the case was first filed, Meghan’s lawyers have finally taken a swipe at how she was described, adding the word “erroneously.”
A filing seen by Newsweek read: “The Duchess of Sussex (erroneously sued as ‘Meghan Markle’), discloses the following individuals and entities who may have an interest in the outcome of this appeal.”
The statement is signed by Michael J. Kump, Meghan’s lawyer.
