HRH The Duchess of Sussex v Associated Newspapers Ltd

What the court held

The Duchess of Sussex obtained summary judgment against the publisher of the Mail on Sunday and MailOnline over their publication of extracts from a five-page handwritten letter she had sent to her father. Warby J held she had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the letter's contents and that publishing large parts of it was a disproportionate interference not justified by any public interest; he also gave summary judgment on copyright infringement (one authorship issue reserved). The data-protection claim was not determined at that hearing. The Court of Appeal dismissed the newspaper's appeal in December 2021.

Key rulings

• Private correspondence attracts a reasonable expectation of privacy in its contents; near-verbatim publication of large extracts is a serious and disproportionate interference.
• Summary judgment can be an appropriate disposal of a misuse-of-private-information claim where the privacy balance clearly favours the claimant.
• Copyright can subsist in a personal letter, and reproduction of substantial parts infringes it independently of the privacy wrong.
• Liability rested on misuse of private information and copyright infringement; the court made no finding on the data-protection claim.

Topics

Related cases (citator)

How this case connects to others in the landmark set — lines of authority, statutory supersession, and companion rulings.

• Campbell v MGN Ltd [2004] UKHL 22

  Both apply the reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test to a press publication.

• Mosley v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2008] EWHC 1777 (QB)

  Both concern disproportionate publication of private material without public-interest justification.

Acts cited

• Human Rights Act 1998
• Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Authoritative source