Amber Heard demands new trial against Johnny Depp, files appeal against $10 million defamation verdict

Amber Heard is seeking a new defamation trial against her former husband Johnny Depp. This comes less than a month after Depp appealed against her being awarded $2 million in the highly publicised defamation case. According to New York Times, the ‘Aquaman’ actor’s lawyers have now filed a new 68-page appeal against Depp, claiming that the trial was held in the wrong state. They also objected exclusion of certain pieces of evidence by the judge, including therapy notes in which she reported being abused.

‘Instead of suing Heard in California, where both parties lived and where Depp claimed to have suffered reputational harm, Depp sued in Virginia, a wholly inconvenient forum with no connection to Depp or any meaningful connection to his claims. The trial court erroneously refused to dismiss this action on the ground of forum non-conveniens, based on its mistaken conclusion that Depp's claims arose in Virginia because the Washington Post's servers are located here,’ Heard's lawyer wrote in the 68-page document.

‘The trial court improperly prevented the jury from considering several separate instances in which Heard reported Depp's abuse to a medical professional,’ they added.

Amber Heard's team wants the jury's verdict to be reversed, either with a dismissal of Depp's claims or a new trial entirely. They even referred to the 2020 UK ruling and stated that the case should never have gone to trial because another court already concluded that Johnny Depp abused Heard on multiple occasions.

Johnny had sued his ex-wife for $50 million in 2019 after she had called herself a ‘public figure representing domestic abuse’ in The Washington Post op-ed in 2018. The defamation trial concluded in favour of Depp and he was awarded $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. On the other hand, Amber was also awarded $2 million in damages.

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