Amber Heard Loses Midtrial Bid to Toss Johnny Depp’s Defamation Lawsuit
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A judge ruled on Tuesday that Johnny Depp has presented enough evidence to survive Amber Heard’s midtrial bid to dismiss his $50 million defamation case.
Judge Penney Azcarate pointed to testimony from witnesses supporting Depp’s claims that the allegedly defamatory statements at issue in the case are false, about him and that Heard could have made them “so recklessly as to amount to willful disregard for the truth.”
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The motion to strike from Heard is standard practice as she starts to present her case to 11 jurors who will determine whether she defamed her ex-husband in an op-ed published in The Washington Post that didn’t name Depp but correlated with their time together. The ruling allowing the case to proceed was largely expected.
While the central question in the trial is whether Depp abused Heard, the allegedly defamatory statements in Heard’s column are: 1. “I spoke up against sexual violence—and faced our culture’s wrath.”; 2. “Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.”; 3. “I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.”
Seeking to toss Depp’s case, Heard’s attorney Ben Rottenborn argued there’s no dispute that his client was subject to some form of abuse, either verbally, emotionally or psychologically. He pointed to direct testimony from Depp that he considers verbal abuse from his mother during his childhood as a concession on the point.
“His mom used to call him ‘one eye’ because of his lazy eye as a child,” Rottenborn said. “That’s something Mr. Depp himself said is abuse.”
Rottenborn said that all Heard has to prove to prevail in the trial is that Depp abused her at some point. He concluded, “In this case, if Mr. Depp abused Ms. Heard, physically verbally, emotionally, or psychologically even one time, then she wins on those claims. She wins. It’s that simple.”
Ben Chew, representing Depp, countered that he’s presented multiple witnesses, documents and audio recordings that not only meet the minimum requirements to allege defamation, including the difficult-to-meet actual malice standard that the allegedly defamatory statement was made with the knowledge that it’s false and intent to harm, but go the “extra mile of showing that Ms. Heard physically abused” his client. He exclaimed of Heard, “She’s the abuser in this courtroom.”
While statements in columns don’t ordinarily constitute defamation, Virginia law recognizes that there can be defamation by inference or implication.
Of the allegedly defamatory statement concerning Heard becoming a “public figure representing domestic abuse,” Chew argued that the statement can be “read to imply that she became a figure because she was abused by Mr. Depp, not because she spoke out about” the issue. He cited testimony from police officers challenging Heard’s claim that Depp beat her.
Law enforcement — who were called to the former couple’s home on the night in 2016 that Heard contends Depp assaulted her — testified last week that they saw no readily apparent injuries on her face.
Shortly before she moved for a divorce, Heard secured a temporary restraining order against Depp. She showed up to court with bruising, allegedly from a fight with Depp.
Los Angeles Police Department officer Tyler Hadden testified, “Ms. Heard refused any medical treatment and had no visible injuries.”
The testimony contradicted Heard’s claim that Depp injured her, repeatedly hitting her in the face. But under cross-examination, the officer said he didn’t know whether Heard had disguised the bruises with makeup, as she contends.
“Witness after witness has come forward to testify that Ms. Heard, far from being a figure representing domestic violence, is in fact a recidivist perpetrator of domestic violence,” Chew said.
The question of whether the allegedly defamatory statement concerning the op-ed’s title, “I spoke up against sexual violence—and faced our culture’s wrath,” should move forward raised concerns from the judge. She held off on making a final ruling on whether it should proceed.
Rottenborn argued that Heard can’t be held liable for the headline because it was written by The Washington Post, while Chew maintained that she can because she republished the piece by tweeting it.
Chew pointed to testimony from Terence Dougherty, chief operating officer and general counsel for the ACLU. He said that the ACLU intended for readers to understand that the accusations were aimed at Depp.
During his prerecorded testimony, Dougherty said that the ACLU and Heard reworked the article multiple times to avoid a defamation claim from Depp.
Robin Schulman, a communications strategist for the ACLU, wrote the first draft. Asked whether Heard pushed to include details of her marriage, Dougherty denied that and said, “The language that wound up in the final op-ed piece was very different from the original language.”
Dougherty was also extensively questioned on Heard’s donations to the organization.
The Aquaman actress had pledged the entirety of her $7 million divorce settlement from Depp to charities, with half going to the ACLU and the other half going to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
Heard has thus far given roughly $1.3 million, Dougherty testified. He said that the ACLU understood that she’d give the $3.5 million across 10 years and that he recognized that her financial difficulties may impact whether the full donation is made.
Heard was making payments to the ACLU until she was sued by Depp.
Representatives for Heard declined to comment on the ruling.
On Tuesday, Heard began to present her case, starting with expert testimony from a psychologist testifying on the symptoms of domestic abuse victims. Heard will likely take the stand tomorrow.
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