After a six week, very public defamation trial, between Johnny DeppAmber Heard and the jury voted in favor of the Pirates of the CaribbeanActor at its conclusion. The Depp v. Heard verdictHeard was convicted on three counts defamation and owed her ex $15M. Depp was also found guilty in Heard’s countersuit. Heard owed Depp $2M in damages. Depp has appealed against Heard’s judgment regarding the amount he owes.
Johnny Depp submitted a 44-page, appellate brief to his lawyers on Wednesday. It suggested that he should not be held responsible for the $2,000,000 court ordered in June. The documents call Heard’s countersuit “fatally flawed”As well as suggesting the court “should have granted Mr. Depp’s motion for summary judgment,”Per Law & Crime. The brief included three reasons why, beginning with these words:
First, Mr. Depp cannot be held liable for Mr. Waldman’s statements as a matter of law. Ms. Heard tried to hold Mr. Depp accountable for the April 27 Waldman statement on a pure theory. This was based on vicarious responsibility, arguing that Mr. Depp was only liable because Mr. Waldman had been retained as Mr. Depp’s attorney and thus was his agent. However, as a matter if law, Mr. Waldman, an independent contractor, is not automatically liable for Mr. Depp’s allegedly tortious behavior. Indeed, a wealth of authorities supports limiting a client’s liability for allegedly tortious conduct by an attorney, and the Court should impose that same limit here.
Depp’s lawyers argue that the actor should not have been legally held liable for one of his lawyers, Adam Waldman, saying the claims that Amber Heard regarded as defamation in her countersuit. In Heard’s defamation countersuit, the jury ruled in favor of Heard for one of three statements Waldman said, leading to one count of damages summing up to $2 million. Here’s Depp’s latest document.
Second, Ms. Heard brought Mr. Depp to trial on a vicarious theory. She was required by the court to prove that Mr. Waldman had committed every element of the tort. No evidence of Mr. Waldman’s actual malice was presented at trial, so the judgment against Mr. Depp cannot be sustained.
The claim believes that Waldman’s statement was “solely” the subject of Heard’s defamation suit, and thus it’s believed that the court’s “judgment in Ms. Heard’s favor on that lone statement is erroneous.” Here’s the final reason:
The third, April 27 Waldman Statement is, when viewed in context, a non-actionable statement. It is insufficient to support defamation claims.
The document is filled with pages of arguments that expand on the points made in the previous three reasons. If you’re interested in checking out the full document, check out Depp’s full Brief of Appeals. Following Heard’s appeal against the verdict, Depp seeks to win full victory over his ex-wife.
Amber Heard is currently In an effort to have her own ruling annulledBoth sides won certain aspects of the case. This made it “inherently and irreconcilably inconsistent.”She appeals that her victory in U.K. should have been considered in the Virginia case.
Johnny Depp is back at work as both Depps and Heard work with their lawyers in their defamation cases. Filming a French film about King Louis XV. On the other side, Heard is said to be living in Spain.You will be working under a pseudonym. We’ll keep you updated here on CinemaBlend as more developments emerge.