Actress Amber Heard has appealed the $10million award she was ordered to pay ex-husband Johnny Depp following a defamation trial held earlier this year.
Heard’s attorneys argues in a 68-page filing that significant evidence was excluded and that the trial was held in the wrong state.
The trial was held in Fairfax, Virginia, because that is where The Washington Post website houses its servers.
36-year-old Heard filed her appeal last month and argued that the exclusion of some of her therapy notes, in which she reported being abused by Depp, resulted in an unfair trial.
The notes were ruled out by Virginia Judge Penney Azcarate, then. Amber is now asking for a reversal of the decision or an entirely new trial in the sweeping defamation case against her ex-husband Johnny Depp, which she lost earlier this year.
In June, Depp, 56, was awarded $10.35million in a verdict delivered after his legal team successfully argued that Heard’s Washington Post op-ed, in which she accused her ex-husband of domestic abuse, was defamatory.
Heard did not name Depp publicly in the piece but given their status and notoriety, it was evident who she was referencing in regard to her history of being allegedly abused.
Now, in a 68-page document dated to late November, Heard’s attorneys write that the court “improperly prevented the jury from considering several instances in which Heard reported Depp’s abuse to a medical professional.”
“If not reversed, the trial court’s exclusion of contemporaneous reports of domestic abuse to medical professionals will make it more difficult for other abuse victims to prove allegations of abuse, and likely deter them from coming forward,’ they continued.
“That holding, if allowed to stand, undoubtedly will have a chilling effect on other women who wish to speak about abuse involving powerful men.’
“This case also should never have gone to trial because another court had already concluded that Depp abused Heard on multiple occasions,” wrote Heard’s lawyers, referring to the United Kingdom High Court of Justice’s ruling in a separate defamation suit brought by Depp that the Pirates of the Caribbean actor had abused his ex-wife.
On the other hand, Depp’s legal team has also filed to appeal the $2million he was ordered to pay his ex-wife for the single count of defamation of which he was found guilty.
