The Lawsuits Thread

[gipsyblues]

Thank you, ForeverYoung and

[In-too-Depp]

Depp-Heard trial: Three questions answered after the verdict

BBC website
2nd June 2022

Jurors in the US state of Virginia have found that Johnny Depp and Amber Heard both defamed each other in public statements.

Mr Depp, 58, who was suing his ex-wife for $50m, won all three of his claims and has been awarded $10.4m in damages.

Ms Heard, 36, counter-sued for $100m. But she won only one of her three claims against Mr Depp and will receive $2m.

With the drama in the courtroom now over, here is what comes next:

What are the damages Depp and Heard must pay?

Civil courts award damages to plaintiffs to compensate their pain and suffering or help them recoup losses after an incident.

Compensatory damages are intended to reimburse a plaintiff who has experienced actual losses, including from future earnings.

Punitive damages are intended to punish a defendant for their negligent actions, deterring them from committing the same violation again.

The jury initially awarded Mr Depp $10m in compensatory damages and $5m in punitive damages.

Judge Penney Azcarate reduced the latter amount to $350,000, to meet Virginia's statutory limit for punitive damage awards, so Ms Heard now owes him about $10.4m.

Meanwhile, Ms Heard was awarded $2m in compensatory damages but no punitive damages - a far cry from the $100m she demanded in her counter-suit.

Can Heard appeal?

The jury in Fairfax, Virginia, largely sided with Mr Depp's side of the story.

In its verdict, the seven-member panel said Ms Heard had defamed her ex-husband with "false" statements about their relationship. They also said the statements were made with "actual malice" - that is, with reckless disregard or negligence.

Ms Heard did succeed on one count: the claim that Mr Depp's lawyer gave a statement to the Daily Mail in 2020 calling her abuse allegations a hoax.

Reacting to the verdict, the actress said she was "disappointed beyond words" and "heartbroken".

She has an opportunity to appeal the jury verdict - and a spokeswoman has said she plans to do so.

But unless new evidence or testimony emerges in the aftermath of this blockbuster six-week courtroom drama, little looks likely to affect Wednesday's outcome.

How much are Depp and Heard worth?

Mr Depp rose from a child star to become one of the best-paid actors in the world.

He is said to have amassed a salary of more than $300m (£240m) from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise alone.

His net worth is currently estimated to be about $150m.

Ms Heard has made a name for herself in movies like The Danish Girl and Aquaman, a sequel for which she is due to star in next year. But her acting career had only recently begun to take off.

Her current net worth is unclear, but it is significantly lower than that of her former husband. Some sources say it is around $8m, while other sources report it may be in negative territory.

Given that Mr Depp has been awarded over $10m in damages, and she will only receive $2m from him, Ms Heard's finances could take a major hit.

[AnaMaria]

I am very happy to hear that justice has been done. It was remarkable and heartwarming that everywhere, even here in the Netherlands (where Johnny is not as well known as in the USA), the public opinion was in favor of Johnny all along.
Great that this has finally been officially confirmed !
JD !

[Inquiring Minds]

I've been in shock all day. I woke to the news and have now seen the verdict read innumerable times.

Congrats to JD, his brilliant legal team, his friends and family, his stans, fans and supporters. The whole Army. So many have help bring this to VA and shepherd it through to victory, but I would single out one participant amongst the supporters, and known to us here - the incomparable Lbock.

A huge thanks must also be extended to the Judge, jury and all those in VA court. This is also a victory for the US justice system - a system that has made this possible.

It's still sinking in, and I will make a posting in the next few days with some thoughts on the implications. And who knows? AH may even attempt to make an appeal.

The rest of the world now knows what I have known for a long time. Johnny Depp is a good man.

I hope he is able now, for a short while at least, to kick back, eat, drink, be merry, smoke, roll a few joints, play guitar and do whatever chilled out things he would normally do without someone telling him not to. Or worrying about someone being poised with a camera to take photos every time he falls asleep.

I find I have hope for so many things now and for humanity in general.

Veritas numquam perit

[Chilli]

Congrats from Belgium to Johnny, his lawyers, the judge and jury and everyone who kept believing in him!

[hollyberry]

He's had massive support in the UK, apart from a few...individuals.
I wish him all the best. Let's hope his film career will start to pick up, I take a certain satisfaction in the egg liberally spread over the faces of WB and Disney execs...I already have a score with Disney, nothing to do with Johnny, this puts the icing on the cake nevertheless. Hopefully Johnny will now start picking up his life and move on, and in time, hopefully with a decent partner - someone human perhaps.

Amber Heard is the sort of narcissist who sadly won't quietly disappear, but I doubt if she will get many roles in the near future, and I fervently hope Elon Musk will consider custody of their daughter as I do not trust that sociopath with a child. As for me, I just want to see Johnny's career pick up, and that other male victims of spousal abuse will take heart from this verdict. Cheers Johnny!

[ForeverYoung]

Her lawyer EB was already on a talk show blabbing about how they won in the UK (no thanks to an attorney with personal ties to a corrupt judge) and that AH is planning an appeal, which doesn't surprise me. AH did a statement about how let down she was by the US court system but she was in fact awarded $2 million so she really didn't loose completely.

JD was awarded $10 million on compensatory damages and $5 million for punitive damages but there is a cap in VA law that a person can only get awarded $350,000 at the most for punitive damages, so in the end he gets $8,350.000 (factoring in the $2 million he owes her). However, I do not know how they will be working out the attorney fees.

The judge gave Ben Chew until June 24 to submit the order, which she still has to review and file with the court to officially close this out.

She was not a good witness and her lawyer spent too much time repeating the same questions over and over when they got sustained, imo.

I hope JD had a great night celebrating his justice. He deserves it after all she has put him through.

[Theresa]

Unbelievable--I mean, I know that they will probably try to appeal, as it delays any payments AH will have to make. But really, saying that they couldn't present their evidence....and that the JURY was tainted because they MUST HAVE watched social media during the trial...

Maybe what was happening was that the social media was watching the same trial as the jury, and saw and believed (and didn't believe) the same things that the jury saw? Hmmm....

From The Daily Mail

Amber Heard's attorney reveals the actress is unable to pay the $8M she owes Depp
Keith Griffith 6/2/2022


Amber Heard's lead attorney has spoken out following her stunning civil suit loss and says the actress is unable to pay the $8.35 million in damages she owes Johnny Depp.

Lawyer Elaine Charlson Bredhoft, who represented Heard at trial, appeared on the Today Show on Thursday and said that Heard has 'excellent grounds' to appeal the verdict and plans to do so.

Asked if the Aquaman actress would be able to pay the damages she owes Depp after a jury vindicated his claims that she lied by accusing him of abuse during their marriage, Bredhoft replied: 'No, absolutely not.'

In a blockbuster verdict, a jury in Virginia on Wednesday awarded Depp more than $10 million in damages. In a split decision, Heard also won a $2 million verdict against Depp, leaving her owing him a little more than $8 million.

Amber Heard's lead attorney has spoken out following her stunning civil suit loss and says the actress is unable to pay the $8.35 million in damages she owes Johnny Depp

'It's a horrible message. It's a setback, a significant setback because that's exactly what it means,' Bredhoft said of the verdict.

'Unless you pull out your phone and you video your spouse or your significant other beating you, effectively, you won't be believed.'

The attorney insisted the jury in the case had been influence by public opinion including on social media, despite strict orders from the judge not to read anything about the case outside of court.

'There's no way they couldn't have been influenced. It was horrible. It was really, really lop sided,' Bredhoft said of public sentiment against Heard in the case. 'It's like the Roman coliseum, how they viewed this whole case.'

Bredhoft said that Depp's legal team had tried to 'demonize amber and suppress the evidence.'

'We had an enormous amount of evidence suppressed in this case that was in the UK case,' she said, referring to Depp's defamation suit against the Sun, which he lost. 'In the UK case when it came in, Amber won, Mr. Depp lost.'

A jury sided Wednesday with Johnny Depp in his libel lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard

'It's a horrible message. It's a setback, a significant setback because that's exactly what it means,' Bredhoft said of the verdict

Asked whether the verdict meant that the jury simply didn't believe Heard, Bredhoft doubled down, responding: 'That's because she was demonized here.'

'A number of things were allowed in this court that should not have been allowed and it caused the jury to be confused,' she said.

Bredhoft said that Heard was feeling the 'burden' of Wednesday's verdict.

'One of the first things she said is, I am so sorry to all those women out there. This is a setback. For all women in and outside the courtroom. And she feels -- she feels the burden of that,' the attorney said.

The verdicts bring an end to a televised trial that Depp had hoped would help restore his reputation, though it turned into a spectacle that offered a window into a vicious and dysfunctional marriage.

Heard, who was stoic in the courtroom as the verdict was read, said she was heartbroken.

'I'm even more disappointed with what this verdict means for other women. It´s a setback. It sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly humiliated. It sets back the idea that violence against women is to be taken seriously,' she said in a statement posted on her Twitter account.

Depp, who was not in court Wednesday, said 'the jury gave me my life back. I am truly humbled.'

'I hope that my quest to have the truth be told will have helped others, men or women, who have found themselves in my situation, and that those supporting them never give up,' he said in a statement posted to Instagram.

Depp sued Heard for libel in Fairfax County Circuit Court over a December 2018 op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post describing herself as 'a public figure representing domestic abuse.' His lawyers said he was defamed by the article even though it never mentioned his name.

The jury found in Depp's favor on all three of his claims relating to specific statements in the 2018 piece.

[In-too-Depp]

Thanks for the article Theresa, of course the Daily Fail is a trash newspaper that has been biased against Johnny is the one she does an interview with. She had ample time to present evidence and Elaine is just trying to cover her own back for being such a weak attorney in court. She wasted so much time and of course we all know she herself lied in court, and we mustn't forget that even Amber threw them under the bus herself at times. I'm sure Amber has shown her displeasure with them and now she's fighting to save face, not to mention she wants her own money.

[Theresa]

Thanks for the article Theresa, of course the Daily Fail is a trash newspaper that has been biased against Johnny is the one she does an interview with. She had ample time to present evidence and Elaine is just trying to cover her own back for being such a weak attorney in court. She wasted so much time and of course we all know she herself lied in court, and we mustn't forget that even Amber threw them under the bus herself at times. I'm sure Amber has shown her displeasure with them and now she's fighting to save face, not to mention she wants her own money.

No, she did the interview with NBC's The Today Show that was aired this morning. In the article are screengrabs from that show. But no matter whether it was for mainstream TV or the Daily Mail, what she says is utter trash. It sounds to me like she just blasted the judge for illegally suppressing evidence, and the jury for illegally reading social and mainstream media. Not the best way to successfully appeal the case, is it?

[ForeverYoung]

The ex didn't "win" anything in the UK court. SHE WAS ONLY A WITNESS.

The ex says she wants to move on with her life but now she is considering an appeal. She said that she just wants JD to leave her alone, which what he was doing for six years while she was out there doing her stupid speeches, videos, and "letter to her sisters."

JD practically begged her on the audio tape to settle the divorce quietly but she refused and now she's whining about what the result of that was.

I do not, and never will, feel sorry for this woman who flat out lied under oath.

[Lbock]

What a roller coaster. So the jury found in favor got Johnny in 5 statements that she lied! Only one statement for Amber as Depp team didnt have evidence to completely dispute the “story” Adam laid out. I heard the second 911 audio was hearsay. The caller was anonymous. Also, possible with the bit that her lawyer told them to get their stories straight

Most importantly, the jury awarded Johnny $5M in punative damages (yes reduced to $350K)

“If you have found by clear and convincing evidence that the statements in the op-ed were made with knowledge that they were false or so recklessly as to amount to a willful disregard for the truth, that is, with a high degree of awareness that the statements were probably false, then you may award punitive damages to punish Ms. Heard for such actions and to serve as an example to prevent others from making such statements in the future. You must state separately in your verdict any amount you allow as compensatory damages, if any, and the amount you
allow as punitive damages.”

$0 Punative awarded to Amber
“If you have found by clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Waldman, while acting as an agent for Mr. Depp, made the statements with knowledge that they were false or so recklessly as to amount to a willful disregard for the truth, that is, with a high degree of awareness that the statements were probably false, then you may award punitive damages to punish Mr. Depp for such actions and to serve as an example to prevent others from making such statements in the future. You must state separately in your verdict any amount you allow as compensatory damages, if any, and the amount you allow as punitive damages.”

[fireflydances]

I am not a happy camper today. This morning at 6am I heard a commentator on NPR insisting that AH had been wronged. I have been a substantial monthly contributor for quite a while, and I immediately contacted my local station --- WAMU-- and advised them that I am cancelling my subscription. Enough of this nonsence of fools running behind this disgusting woman!

I also read a similarly wrong-headed piece in the Washington Post and responded as follows:

I am seriously contemplating stopping my years long subscription to the Washington Post. For some bizarre reason this jury trial's verdict is not good enough for the Washington Post. I would guess that neither reporter (or commentator) attended the trial, reviewed the photographic evidence, nor bothered to listen to the relevant testimony. Anyone who actually looked and listened would have come to the same result as the jury.

The judge in the UK trial based a good portion of his decision on the belief that Ms. Heard's statements regarding her 7 million dollar contributions to the ACLU and Children's Hospital in LA were honestly made. During the Virginia trial both Children's Hospital and the ACLU stated that Ms. Heard has not made these donations. Children's Hospital has received nothing. The ACLU contribution records clearly indicate that Ms. Heard herself has only contributed $300,000.

It's too bad that so many media types are so vested in Ms. Heard as a true victim of domestic violence when the evidence in the trial blatantly demonstrated that was not the case. True survivors of domestic and sexual violence deserve a credible representative, not a fraud looking to elevate her image. I am urging you to go back and truly examine the evidence and testimonies provided during this trial. The last thing the Post should be doing is bending it's principles to favor the prejudices of a minority.

I am so angry at this behavior by mainstream press. I hope that Team Depp can effect some 'change in attitude'!! I am sure that ill-bred and scurrilous PR guy that AH hired is behind all this.

What in Hell's name counts as truth??? If there is ANYTHING we can do to unite and press these people please advise. I am furious.

NOTE: There is a similar article in the New York Times.

[magpie]

Thanks for the article Theresa, of course the Daily Fail is a trash newspaper that has been biased against Johnny is the one she does an interview with. She had ample time to present evidence and Elaine is just trying to cover her own back for being such a weak attorney in court. She wasted so much time and of course we all know she herself lied in court, and we mustn't forget that even Amber threw them under the bus herself at times. I'm sure Amber has shown her displeasure with them and now she's fighting to save face, not to mention she wants her own money.

No, she did the interview with NBC's The Today Show that was aired this morning. In the article are screengrabs from that show. But no matter whether it was for mainstream TV or the Daily Mail, what she says is utter trash. It sounds to me like she just blasted the judge for illegally suppressing evidence, and the jury for illegally reading social and mainstream media. Not the best way to successfully appeal the case, is it?

Amber and her lawyer, two peas in a pod?

[Lbock]

Washington Post added an Editor’s note at top of article