Amber Heard is complaining records including medical records were not lodged as evidencein her defamation trial against Johnny Depp. Photo / AP
Amber Heard is complaining records including medical records were not lodged as evidencein her defamation trial against Johnny Depp. Photo / AP
Amber Heard will argue 16 points in her appeal against Johnny Depp over their defamation trial.
Documents filed at the Court of Appeals of Virginia show the 36-year-old Aquaman actress – who owes her former husband $18.5 million in damages – is complaining records including medical records were not lodgedas evidence.
Her 16-point appeal paper also shows she believes the court "erred" in not allowing into evidence the fact Depp, 59, lost a similar defamation trial against Heard in the United Kingdom, along with his statements that followed the loss.
US actor Johnny Depp arrives at the Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse. Photo / AP
Her legal team also condemned the court for allowing testimony about Heard's false claim that she had donated $7 million to the American Civil Liberties Union from her divorce settlement from Depp.
Central to her appeal is a claim the court mistakenly allowed Depp to argue or suggest damages could be awarded based on statements made before the publication of Heard's op-ed piece for the Washington Post.
Her article about sexual violence, printed in 2018, didn't name the actor as an abuser but he said it was defamatory to his character.
Depp owes Heard $3.4 million as a result of their six-week defamation trial, which she says in her appeal lacked "clear and convincing evidence" to show she acted out of malice, which must be proven in defamation cases.
The actress' appeal document says: "The trial court erred in denying the motion to set aside the jury's verdict with regard to Depp's failure to prove that the allegedly defamatory statements in the challenged op-ed each conveyed a defamatory meaning about him by implication and that any such implication was both designed and intended by Ms. Heard."
Amber Heard interview on NBC's Today Show. Photo / NBC
Depp was awarded $16.4 to $25.5 million in compensatory damages and $8.5 million in punitive damages, but the judge later capped the damages at $596,000, leaving the actor with a total of $14.3 million.
Heard won one of her three countersuit claims related to statements made by Depp's lawyer suggesting the actress and her friends had trashed their apartment before calling the police.
She was awarded $3.4 million in compensatory damages out of the US $100 million (NZ $171 million) she sought from Depp.
