[imagesource: Jim Lo Scalzo / Pool Photo via AP]

In what was no doubt the celebrity trial of the year (albeit civil, rather than criminal), both Amber Heard and Johnny Depp were found liable for defamation in their lawsuits against each other.

A jury awarded damages to both, although Depp’s $15 million ($10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million dollars in punitive damages) far outweighed Heard’s $2 million (compensatory damages, with no punitive damages).

Depp won’t get that full $15 million, no matter what happens with Amber Heard’s planned appeal, which is where we now find ourselves in the process.

Heard’s lawyers have asked a judge to throw out the verdict against her, and are arguing that the verdict “was not supported by the evidence and that one of the jurors may not have been properly vetted by the court”.

Post-trial motions were filed last Friday (July 1), reports CBS News:

Heard’s attorneys call the jury’s June 1 award of $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages to Depp “excessive” and “indefensible.” They ask the judge to set aside the verdict and dismiss Depp’s lawsuit or order a new trial…

In their post-trial motions, Heard’s legal team argued that to find that Heard had actual malice, Depp would have had to show that at the time Heard’s article was published, she did not believe she had been abused.

Image: Jim Lo Scalzo / Pool / AFP via Getty Images

“Instead, the evidence overwhelmingly supported Ms. Heard believed she was the victim of abuse at the hands of Mr. Depp,” Heard’s lawyers say in their motion.

The article referred to above is the December 2018 op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse”.

Depp was never mentioned by name but his lawyers say he was still defamed by the article and the jury agreed.

Interestingly, in the UK, Depp earlier lost a libel case against the Sun newspaper over an article that called him a “wife beater”. The judge in that matter, Judge Mr Justice Nicol, said the outlet had proven what was in the article to be “substantially true” and found that Heard was telling the truth in her descriptions of abuse.

US cases are decided by a jury rather than a judge, with the first juror to publicly break his silence saying that “a lot of Amber’s story didn’t add up”.

In their post-trial motions on Friday, Heard’s team also asked the judge to investigate “potential improper juror service”:

[They allege] that one of the jurors who was chosen to serve on the jury was listed as being born in 1945 in documents given to the attorneys before the jury selection process, but is listed as being born in 1970 in publicly available information.

“This discrepancy raises the question whether Juror 15 actually received a summons for jury duty and was properly vetted by the Court to serve on the jury,” Heard’s lawyers said in their motion.

Depp’s legal team has yet to publicly respond to the filing of the motion by Heard’s team.

In comments attributed to a source close to the actor by HollywoodLife last month, Depp wishes Amber Heard no “ill will”  and “just wants to move forward with his life”.

[source:cbs]