Coming back. After the long defamation trial in the spring, many people are wondering: Is Amber Heard suing Johnny Depp? According to documents pulled by Entertainment Tonight, Heard isn’t but her lawyers want to throw away the trial’s verdict.
ET obtained the post-trial motion documents on July 4, 2022, where Heard’s lawyers claim that Depp’s compensatory award was “excessive” and “indefensible. Depp was awarded $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages for a total of $15 million. However, Depp was ordered to pay Heard $2 million in compensatory damages. Due to the cap on punitive damages under Virginia state law, Judge Penney Azcarate reduced Heard’s punitive damages from $5 million to $350,000. Heard’s lawyers motion also stated that “the evidence overwhelmingly supported Ms. Heard believed she was the victim of abuse at the hands of Mr. Depp.” The motion continued, “Because actual malice is a subjective standard, whether Ms. Heard believes she was abused must be judged by her definition of abuse. Ms. Heard testified unequivocally that Mr. Depp abused her physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Mr. Depp presented no evidence that Ms. Heard does not believe abuse can be physical, emotional or psychological.”
Heard’s lawyers also are asking the judge to look into “potential improper juror service.” According to the documents, one juror claimed that they were born in 1945 in documents given to the legal teams and submitted through the court ahead of the trial. However, Juror 15 was actually born in 1970, according to public records obtained by the lawyers. “This discrepancy raises the question whether Juror 15 actually received a summons for jury duty and was properly vetted by the Court to serve on the jury,” the motion claims. Heard’s legal team argues that because of the discrepancies, “Ms. Heard’s due process.
Depp won the defamation trial on June 1, 2022, after he sued Heard for $50 million. Depp was not in attendance at the long-awaited verdict. The trial was held due to an op-ed Heard wrote in The Washington Post in 2018 about her experiences with domestic abuse. Though no names were mentioned, many people speculated it to be about her marriage to Depp. Depp claimed that the op-ed cost him his acting jobs.
Following the preview of Heard’s interview, a spokesperson for the actress provided the following statement to StyleCaster on June 13, 2022, via email: “Johnny Depp’s legal team blanketed the media for days after the verdict with numerous statements and interviews on television, and Depp himself did the same on social media. Ms. Heard simply intended to respond to what they aggressively did last week; she did so by expressing her thoughts and feelings, much of which she was not allowed to do on the witness stand.”
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