Amber Heard’s Attorneys Ask for Johnny Depp Defamation Case Verdict to Be Tossed

Amber Heard took part in a highly-publicized defamation court case between herself and ex-husband Johnny Depp last month

Amber Heard’s attorneys are seeking to appeal or throw out last month’s verdict in the defamation court battle between the actress and her ex-husband Johnny Depp.

In a 43-page filing sent to a Virginia court on Friday, the Aquaman actress’ team argued that the verdict was not supported by sufficient evidence.

In one claim, Heard’s team argues that it was incorrect for Depp, 59, to claim that he lost his role in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series because of a Washington Post op-ed, where Heard wrote that she was abused but did not name the abuser.

Heard’s team argued that Depp “proceeded solely on a defamation by implication theory, abandoning any claims that Ms. Heard’s statements were actually false.”

The Aquaman star’s team also claimed that one of the jurors who served during the trial was not properly vetted. The person summoned to court had a birth date of 1945 but Heard’s team claims that the person who served was much younger.

The juror, identified in the filing as Juror 15, “was clearly born later than 1945. Publicly available information demonstrates that he appears to have been born in 1970,” the motion states.

Last month, Depp won all three defamation claims in his case against Heard, 36, in response to her 2018 op-ed about coming forward as a survivor of domestic abuse.

The jury awarded Depp $15 million in damages but Heard will only have to pay $10.35 million due to a Virginia law capping punitive damages (the judge reduced the amount).

Additionally, Heard was awarded $2 million in damages for her counterclaims against Depp. The actress’ attorney had previously said that Heard will “absolutely” appeal the verdict against her.

Heard previously called the verdict a “setback” for women and told Today’s Savannah Guthrie that she’s “scared” it will mean more “silencing” for survivors looking to come forward. (Depp, meanwhile, has maintained that he never laid a hand on Heard, and has accused her of physically harming him.)

In response to the filing by Heard’s team, Ben Chew, who leads Depp’s legal team, told Courthouse News that the appeal is “what we expected, just longer, no more substantive”.