Amber Heard says she plans to attraction after Johnny Depp was awarded $10.4 million in his bombshell defamation case Wednesday — and specialists informed The Publish this might put the actor’s payout in limbo.
A jury in Fairfax, Virginia Wednesday discovered Heard answerable for defaming Depp, 58, in her 2018 Washington Publish op-ed wherein she described herself as a sufferer of home abuse. The jury additionally discovered Heard was defamed by one among Depp’s attorneys however solely awarded her $2 million in damages.
“Underneath Virginia regulation you may cease assortment actions pending an attraction – principally freeze the gathering course of to permit the attraction course of to unfold,” Virginia appellate lawyer Steven Emmert informed The Publish. “However it's a must to put up a bond … within the quantity of the judgment plus one yr’s curiosity.”
The 36-year-old “Aquaman” actress’ lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, confirmed on two tv appearances Thursday morning that Heard could be interesting after the jury discovered her liable on all of Depp’s claims in opposition to her – whereas solely discovering him liable on one among her counterclaims.
“She has some wonderful grounds for [appeal],” Bredehoft informed “At present” co-anchor Savanah Guthrie.
“She was demonized right here,” Bredehoft stated. “A variety of issues had been allowed on this court docket that ought to not have been allowed, and it triggered the jury to be confused.”
Earlier than Heard can file an attraction, the events should return into court docket “quickly” to place the jury’s verdict right into a judgment, Virginia defamation lawyer Lee Berlik informed The Publish.
Decide Penney Azcarate ordered the events again on June 24 to enter the judgment.
After the judgment, Depp and Heard can have 30 days to let the opposite aspect know whether or not they plan to attraction after which one other 30 days to file the papers.
Most appeals are heard inside a yr, Berlik stated.
“A few yr from at present we'll most likely have a choice from an appellate court docket,” Berlik stated.
Within the meantime, Heard must put up the attraction bond. She may acquire it by paying a bonding firm to place up a bond on her behalf; getting a financial institution to subject a letter saying they'll maintain the funds pending attraction; or securing a court docket bond by paying the complete judgment for the court docket to carry pending attraction, Emmert, the Virginia lawyer, defined.
Emmert stated that if Heard doesn’t put up the attraction bond then Depp may begin going after her for the cash as quickly as 22 days after the judgment.
Bredehoft informed Guthrie her consumer can’t afford the $10.4 million jury award.
As for Heard’s attraction, Berlik stated he may see a number of potential grounds that Heard’s aspect may struggle the decision on — “principally any important mistake that the trial choose made.”
That features the truth that the choose allowed the trial to go ahead in Virginia, the place the Washington Publish relies, moderately than in California, the place Depp and Heard dwell.
Her workforce may additionally attraction the choose’s ruling permitting the trial to be televised dwell gavel-to-gavel.
And, they may attraction the ruling to not toss the case out within the first place — as an alternative of letting it go to trial — for the reason that op-ed has “no particular allegations of abuse by Johnny Depp,” Berlik stated.
Bredehoft tipped her hand as to at the very least a few of the grounds she plans to attraction on, together with on the choose’s choice to not enable a few of Heard’s medical data as proof.
Depp’s workforce was “in a position to suppress the medical data, which had been very, very important as a result of they confirmed a sample … going all the best way again to 2012 of Amber reporting this to her therapist, for instance,” Bredehoft informed Guthrie.
“We had [a] important quantity of texts, together with from Mr. Depp’s assistants, saying, ‘After I informed him he kicked you, he cried. He's so sorry.’ That didn’t are available.”
Heard’s workforce may also attraction the greenback quantity of damages — however seemingly wouldn’t achieve success on that entrance as a result of juries in defamation circumstances get “nearly whole latitude to award the quantity they assume is suitable,” Berlik stated.
He stated that a cash verdict must be extraordinarily excessive to ensure that them to have grounds to knock it down.
For the reason that jury got here in effectively beneath Depp’s claims for $50 million in damages and Heard’s claims for $100 million in damages, “An award of $10 million is most definitely going to face,” Berlik stated.
California former choose and present legal protection lawyer Halim Dhanidina, stated he thought the truth that the jury “didn’t simply rubber stamp numbers that had been provided to them” it “exhibits that they really gave some thought to how a lot they although every of those counts of defamation had been actually price in the true world.
“By giving Johnny Depp the bigger quantity in addition to an quantity for punitive damages, I feel they had been clearly saying that he's the larger sufferer on this case,” Dhanidina stated.
Reps for Depp declined to remark when requested if he would attraction.
Heard’s reps declined to remark.
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