Just over a month since the verdict of the extremely public defamation case between Hollywood stars Amber Heard and Johnny Depp, in which Heard was found guilty, her team has now appealed the case and is looking to toss the verdict.
In the appeal, they cite a number of issues they found present in the case and the court, hoping it'll be enough to either dismiss the complaint or have a new trial.
The actress was found guilty of defamation in a highly-watched, very public trial between herself and her ex-husband, Johnny Depp.
Her legal team submitted a filing to the court this past Friday citing numerous issues present in the ruling.
These include things like poor legal reasoning, excessively awarded damages, and an improperly vetted jury.
Heard's attorney, Elaine Bredehoft, believes the case relied heavily on flawed legal logic regarding Depp's claims, which she says "proceeded solely on a defamation by implication theory, abandoning any claims that Ms Heard’s statements were actually false."
They originally said they would only focus on the period of time after Heard's op-ed about Depp, the one that was the basis for this trial in which she first mentioned being a survivor of domestic abuse, but instead mentioned events and statements from years prior.
Heard's team believes the jury wasn't vetted well enough, pointing to Juror 15 as proof, as their birthday on court records and their birthday in publically available information differed by 25 years.
These discrepancies are only a portion of the issues mentioned in the full document.
Heard's team either wants a new verdict, a dismissal of Depp's complaint, or a new trial entirely.
Head of Depp's legal team, Ben Chew, said the appeal was "what we expected, just longer, no more substantive."
h/t: Independent
