Amber Heard has officially appealed the verdict in her high profile defamation trial loss against her ex-husband, Johnny Depp. The Aquaman star stated her intention to appeal the verdict as soon as it was reached back in June, but the official filing of the appeal did not happen until now, a month after Depp actually filed his own appeal in the suit. She seeks out either the verdict being overturned, or at least sent back for a new trial.

Depp filed a $50 million defamation suit against his ex-wife in 2019 after Heard wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post discussing Depp's abuse of her during their brief and tumultuous marriage. His claim was that her accusing him of being an abuser ruined his successful career as a movie star. Heard then counter-sued Depp for $100 million, claiming that Depp's lawsuit was negatively hurting her career as an actor, as well. In June, both sides won on some of their counts, but Depp generally won the more substantial victory against Heard, as the Virginia jury ruled that Depp's damages amounted to more than $10 million, while Heard's were only $2 million. In other words, while they both defamed each other, Heard's defamation was "worse."

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Heard's appeal is based on a number of issues, including an argument that the trial should never have been held in Virginia in the first place, arguing that the fact that the servers for the Washington Post were located in the state should not be enough to connect the trial to Virginia (right or wrong, Virginia's defamation laws are considered to be more attractive for plaintiffs than other states). Heard's lawyers also argued that Heard's opinion piece was protected speech, stating "the challenged statements are non-actionable expressions of opinion and are not reasonably capable of conveying the alleged defamatory implication" and that the ruling "if allowed to stand, undoubtedly will have a chilling effect on other women who wish to speak about abuse involving powerful men.”

Another major argument in the appeal is that a British court ruled last year, in a related case, that Depp's defamation claim against a British newspaper that referred to Depp as a "wife-beater" based on Heard's article failed, and that the judge ruled that there was enough evidence that the term "wife-beater" was a "substantially true" description of Depp. Therefore, since another court (albeit a foreign one) had already found reasonable evidence that calling Depp a wife-beater wasn't actionable, then it was unreasonable for it to rise to defamation in the United States.

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Finally, the very disposition of the original trial is being used to call into the question the original ruling. Since Heard won on one of her counts of defamation, the argument is that if Depp has to pay Heard $2 million in damages by defaming her for claiming that her allegations of abuse were a hoax, then how can you also rule that Heard defamed Depp by saying that he abused her?

A group of Virginia judges will now rule on Heard's appeal, as well as Depp's (Depp appealed Heard's minor victory in the original verdict), and depending on their determination, the case can also be appealed again to the Virginia Commonwealth Supreme Court. This legal battle, that has stretched on for over three years, does not seem to be even close to being over.

Source: Deadline