According to reports, Johnny Depp has been the subject of a 68-page appeal from Amber Heard's legal team. She claims that the $2 million judgement she won in the well-known defamation case she was involved in will have a "chilling effect" on women who attempt to speak up about the mistreatment of powerful men. Less than a month had passed since Depp contested the initial $2 million award.
According to a recent article, Amber appealed Johnny's conviction in a Virginia court in the United States last month, alleging that portions of her treatment notes in which she described Johnny's assault were removed led to an unfair trial.
In a document submitted on November 23, Amber's new attorneys, Jay Ward Brown and David L Axelrod, claimed that the trial court had "erroneously refused to dismiss this case on the premise of forum non-conveniens." According to Deadline, they note the court's "mistaken conclusion that Depp's claims arose in Virginia because the Washington Post's servers are housed here.
Amber Heard's legal team objected when Judge Penney Azcarate decided not to take into account some'very probative' pieces of evidence, such as extensive therapist notes describing the alleged assault.
The more than $10 million verdict against Amber Heard is being appealed. Her demurrer, in which she claimed that the contested comments are non-actionable expressions of opinion and are not reasonably capable of conveying the alleged defamatory meaning, was overruled by the trial court, she alleges. The 68-page petition argued that since Depp had been found to have mistreated Heard repeatedly by another court, the case should never have gone to trial.
As a result of Amber's 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post, in which she discussed her role as a "public figure representing domestic abuse," Johnny filed a $50 million lawsuit against her in March 2019. After the paperwork was submitted, Johnny insisted that he had been the abuser. The jury found in Johnny's favour following a seven-week defamation trial and gave him $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. The punitive damages were lowered to $350,000, despite the fact that they are now the highest in the State. Amber was handed a $2 million damage award as an alternative.