Friday 14 October 2022 12:01 AM Amber Heard will argue SIXTEEN points in her appeal against Johnny Depp trends now
Amber Heard and her new legal team have filed a 16 point argument in her appeal against Johnny Depp over their defamation trial.
According to the documents filed to the Court of Appeals of Virginia, Heard, who owes Depp $10.3 million in damages, claims her ex-husband misled the jury into believing she was on trial for statement prior to her domestic abuse allegations.
Depp, who only owes Heard $2 million as a result of the trial, sued her for defamotory statements made in her 2018 Washington Post op-ed piece about sexual violence, which Heard said did not name Depp as an abuser directly.
Heard claimed the trial had a lack of 'clear and convincing evidence' for actual malice, the very standard of a defamation case, and called out the court's alleged failure to invalidate the damages awarded to both her and Depp after ruling they both defamed each other.
'Inherently and irreconcilably inconsistent,' the appeal stated of the damages awarded to both.
Amber Heard filed a 16 point appeal argument in her defamation trial with ex-husband Johnny Depp. Heard, calling out lack of evidence in the contentious case that saw her owe $10 million
Heard claimed the trial failed to prove actual malice and accused Depp's team of suggesting that he could be awarded damages from statements outside the 2018 op-ed piece at the center of the trial, which unfolded years of their tumultuous relationship
Heard's 16 point argument begins with a claim that the heated defamation trial, which gripped the nation over the summer, should've been dismissed as is because it belonged in a more appropriate setting than Fairfax, Virginia.
Depp's team had pushed for the trial to be held in Fairfax county because that is where the Post is printed.
Heard's team also argued that the court erred in not allowing into evidence the fact that Depp lost a similar defamation trial against his ex-wife in the United Kingdom, and his statements following that loss.
They also condemned the court for allowing testimony about Heard's lie that she donated $3.5 million to the ACLU from her divorce settlement despite telling the UK court that she had.
At the heart of her appeal was the claim that the court mistakenly allowed Depp to argue or suggest that damages could be awarded based on statements prior to the publication of the 2018 op-ed piece.
Much of the couple's disorderly conduct was put on display in the trial, including allegations that they attacked each other during their tumultuous relationship before their 2016 divorce.
Arguing that Depp's allegations against his ex-wife should have been solely centered on the op-ed piece, Heard's team claims the court wrongly ruled that the statements made in the Post were 'actionable as statements of fact rather than non-actionable expressions of opinion.'
In other words, the lawyers argued that Heard should have been protected by the First Amendment, and that Depp had no case because he was never named in the op-ed piece.
'The trial court erred in denying the motion to set aside the jury's verdict with regard to Mr. Depp's failure to prove that the allegedly defamatory statements in the challenged
