The Johnny Depp-Amber Heard libel trial, which generated intense interest for two months earlier this year as a livestreamed, no-holds-barred soap opera featuring one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, is not fading away quietly. Earlier this month, Heard’s lawyers filed a 51-page motion asking Judge Penney Azcarate to set aside the jury’s verdict, which gave $10 million to Depp and $2 million to Heard on competing defamation claims. The motion cites multiple reasons that the verdict is untenable, from the surprising decision to declare both sides victorious to one extent or another, to a bizarre case of mistaken identity with one of the jurors.

Depp sued for $25 million in Fairfax County after Heard wrote a 2018 op-ed piece in The Washington Post about domestic violence in which she referred to herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” The article never mentioned Depp by name, but his lawyers said several passages in the article defamed him by implication by referring to highly publicized abuse allegations she made in 2016 as she filed for divorce. Heard then filed a $50 million counterclaim, also for defamation. By the time the case went to trial, her counterclaim had been whittled down to a few statements made by one of Depp’s lawyers, who called Heard’s abuse allegations a hoax.

The jury awarded $15 million to Depp and $2 million to Heard on her counterclaim. The $15 million judgment was reduced to $10.35 million because Virginia law caps punitive damages at $350,000.

Heard’s lawyers say in court papers that the $10 million verdict is unsupported by the facts, and seems to demonstrate that jurors failed to focus on the fallout from the 2018 op-ed piece — as they were supposed to do — and instead just looked broadly at the damage Depp’s reputation suffered as a result of the alleged abuse.

Depp’s lawyers, though, say the damages are supported by testimony from his agent and others. They say the precedents cited by Heard’s team to support her arguments “are decades old, and none involves an international A-list celebrity.”         Source: AP