A Florida judge said she
doesn’t want the upcoming legal battle between Meghan Markle and her
half-sister to become a royal pain while setting a tentative trial date in the
defamation case.
Samantha Markle, 57, is suing
her famed semi-sibling in federal court, arguing that the Duchess of Sussex
caused her emotional stress by claiming she was raised as an only child during
a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey.
The spurned sister also wants
damages for a book Markle contributed to, alleging it cast her as a feckless
mom who lost custody of her kids.
Judge Charlene Honeywell set a
date of October 2023 for the trial, barring a settlement, and said she wants to
expedite the proceeding.
“The purpose of this order is
to discourage wasteful pretrial activities, and to secure the just, speedy, and
inexpensive determination of this action,” wrote Honeywell.
The judge also issued a
tentative schedule for filing deadlines and estimated a trial length of five
days in her Tampa courtroom.
Samantha Markle’s case asserts
that Meghan, 41, made her look bad during the high-profile sit-down with
Oprah by insisting that she was raised without any siblings.
That claim, she said, cast
doubt on her detailed recollections of their time together as kids and served
as a “humiliation.”
The royal’s lawyers have
countered that Meghan simply bore a “feeling” of having been raised alone and
did not assert it as a fact.
Samantha has also taken issue
with “Finding Freedom,” a book penned by British journalist Omid Scobie with
the assistance of Meghan and Prince Harry.
The suit contends that the
book disparages her for losing custody of her children.
Meghan’s legal team has argued
that she can’t be sued for a book she didn’t write, and that her estranged
sibling’s suit is baseless.
Samantha, they assert, is
aggrandizing her past relationship with the royal for personal gain.
