A Virginia judge on Wednesday rejected actress Amber Heard’s bid to overturn a $10 million judgment awarded against her in favor of ex-husband Johnny Depp. Depp won a defamation suit against Heard last month in a high-profile civil trial. Heard won a smaller judgment, $2 million, in a countersuit she filed against Depp. Earlier this month, Heard filed a lawsuit seeking to have Depp’s verdict overturned or declared unfair. Her lawyers cited several factors, including an apparent case of mistaken identity with one of the jurors. In a written order, Judge Penney Azcarate dismissed all of Heard’s claims and said the jury question was irrelevant and that Heard cannot show she was prejudiced. “The juror was examined, joined the entire jury, deliberated and reached a verdict. The only evidence before this Court is that this juror and all jurors followed their oaths, the directions and orders of the Court. This Court bound by the jury’s competent decision,” Azcarate wrote. Depp sued Fairfax County for $50 million after Heard wrote a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post about domestic violence, in which she referred to herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” The article never mentioned Depp by name, but his lawyers said several passages in the article defamed him by implication by referring to strong abuse allegations he made in 2016 as he filed for divorce. Heard then countersued for $100 million, also for defamation. By the time the case went to trial, her countersuit had been limited to a few statements from one of Depp’s lawyers, who called Heard’s abuse allegations a hoax. The jury awarded Depp $15 million and Heard $2 million for her counterclaim. The $15 million judgment was reduced to $10.35 million because Virginia law caps punitive damages at $350,000. The judge did not elaborate on his reasoning for dismissing Heard’s other claims in Wednesday’s order. Among other things, Heard argued that the $10 million verdict was not supported by the facts and appeared to demonstrate that the jury failed to focus on the fallout from the 2018 project — as they were supposed to — and instead merely considered generally the damage to Depp’s reputation as a result of the alleged abuse. Heard’s lawyers also argued that the verdicts for Depp on one hand and Heard on the other are fundamentally silly. “The dueling jury verdicts are inconsistent and inconsistent,” her attorneys, Elaine Bredehoft and Benjamin Rottenborn, wrote. Heard’s attorneys also challenged the verdict on the grounds that one of the seven jurors who decided the case was never summoned for jury duty. A 77-year-old county resident received a grand jury summons, according to court documents. But the man’s son, who has the same name and lives at the same address, answered the call and served in his place. Hurd’s attorneys argued that Virginia law is strict about juror identities and that a case of mistaken identity is grounds for a mistrial. They presented no evidence that the 52-year-old son, identified in court documents only as Juror 15, deliberately or sneakily tried to replace his father, but they say that possibility should not be dismissed. “The Court cannot assume, as Mr. Depp asks, that the apparently improper service of juror 15 was an innocent mistake. It could have been a deliberate attempt to serve in the court of a high-profile case,” his lawyers wrote Hurd. Hurd still has the option to appeal the verdict to the Virginia Court of Appeals. The issues presented to the appellate court could well be different from the issues Azcarate dismissed Wednesday. In a separate order, the judge ordered dozens of court documents unsealed, including motions seeking independent medical examinations of both Depp and Heard. A handful of documents will remain sealed, mostly because they contain personal contact information or personal medical information. “In this matter, both parties sued each other, opening themselves up to the public forum of a jury trial. Court records are public information,” Azcarate wrote. —— Lavoie reported from Richmond.
