Amber Heard Appeals $10M Johnny Depp Defamation Verdict
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Amber Heard Demands New Trial Months After Losing To Johnny Depp: Actress Files 68-Page Appeal Against ‘Chilling’ $10 Million Libel Verdict Claiming Libel Case Was Held In The WRONG State And excluded explosive therapy notes
- Actress Amber Heard is appealing the $10 million damages she was ordered to pay to her ex-husband Johnny Depp following a defamation trial earlier this year.
- Heard’s lawyers argued in a 68-page filing that important evidence was left out and that the trial was conducted in the wrong state.
- The trial was held in Fairfax, Virginia, because that is where The Washington Post’s website hosts its servers.
- Depp sued Heard in 2019 for $50 million over a Washington Post op-ed written under Heard’s name in which he was accused of domestic abuse.
- Depp’s lawyers also filed an appeal of the $2 million Heard was ordered to pay for a single defamation charge he was found guilty of.
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Amber Heard filed an appeal with the Virginia courts seeking either the decision to be reversed or a completely new trial in the sweeping defamation case against her ex-husband Johnny Depp, which she lost earlier this year.
Heard, 36, filed her appeal last month, arguing that the exclusion of some of her therapy notes, in which she reported being abused by Depp, resulted in an unfair trial. The notes were thrown out by Virginia Judge Penney Azcarate.
In June, Depp, 56, was awarded $10.35 million in a verdict handed down after his legal team successfully argued that Heard’s Washington Post op-ed accusing her ex-husband of abuse domestic, it was defamatory.
Heard did not name Depp publicly in the article, but given his status and notoriety, it was clear who he was referring to regarding his history of alleged assaults.
Amber Heard, 36, was ordered to pay her ex-husband more than $10 million at the end of his week-long libel trial that took place earlier this year; she has now filed an appeal.
Depp and Heard were married for just a tumultuous 15 months before they split in 2016. The inner drama of their Hollywood affair was on full display during a week-long trial in June.
Depp’s legal team is also appealing the $2 million he was ordered to pay his ex-wife on the single defamation charge he was found guilty of.
Now in a 68 page document Dated as of late November, Heard’s lawyers write that the court “improperly prevented the jury from considering several cases in which Heard reported Depp’s abuse to a medical professional.”
“If not reversed, the trial court’s exclusion of contemporaneous reports of domestic abuse to medical professionals will make it more difficult for other abuse victims to prove abuse allegations and likely discourage them from coming forward,” they continued.
“That claim, if allowed to stand, will no doubt have a chilling effect on other women who wish to speak out about abuse involving powerful men.”
“This case should also not have gone to trial because another court had already found that Depp abused Heard on multiple occasions,” Heard’s lawyers wrote, referring to the UK High Court of Justice ruling in a separate libel suit brought by Depp that the Pirates of the Caribbean actor had abused his ex-wife.
Her legal team, which comprises a different set of lawyers than those who represented her during the trial, also argued that the trial, which took place in Fairfax, Virginia, should have taken place in California, where the once-married couple lived. meeting.
Virginia, where The Washington Post hosts its servers, was a “totally inconvenient forum with no connection to Depp or any meaningful connection to his claims,” the filing read.
Depp’s legal team has also appealed the case, alleging that the unique defamation charge against Heard for which he was convicted was “wrong.”
His attorneys wrote in their filing: “The jury’s emphatically favorable verdict on the three defamatory statements alleged in his lawsuit fully vindicated Mr. Depp and restored his reputation.”
Both appeal requests will be resolved by a group of judges.