FAIRFAX, Va. - Fairfax Circuit Court Chief Judge Penney Azcarate denied motions for summary judgment last month in film star Johnny Depp’s defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife actress Amber Heard. As a result, the litigation is now set to begin trial with jury selection on April 11.
Witnesses who will testify remotely include actor James Franco and entrepreneur Elon Musk, while celebrity divorce attorney Laura Wasser will submit by deposition.
Azcarate warned the divorced celebrities in a March 29 order not to capitalize on the high-profile legal proceedings.
“Litigants and their legal teams in this trial will not pose for pictures or sign autographs in the courthouse or on courthouse grounds,” Azcarate wrote. “Any violation of this order may be found as contempt and violators will be punished accordingly.”
As previously reported in Legal Newsline, a judge granted a $7 million divorce settlement to Heard in 2017. Depp subsequently sued Heard when she wrote an opinion-based article in 2018 for the Washington Post in which she discussed her experience with domestic violence but without mentioning her ex-husband’s name.
“Two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out,” Heard wrote in the op-ed. “Friends and advisers told me I would never again work as an actress — that I would be blacklisted. A movie I was attached to recast my role. I had just shot a two-year campaign as the face of a global fashion brand, and the company dropped me…I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real-time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.”
Depp’s lawsuit was filed in Fairfax County because of the location of the Washington Post’s computer servers where the online edition is printed, according to media reports.
The Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise star argued in his March 11 motion for summary judgment that the legal claim against Heard is based on defamatory implication involving their personal relationship, not on a matter of public concern.
“Mrs. Heard's potential liability for defamation arises solely out of the defamatory implication of her words that Mr. Depp abused her,” wrote Depp's attorney Benjamin Chew in the pleading, which was denied. “Courts have recognized repeatedly that liability for defamation may rest on defamatory innuendo, which is no more protected by the first amendment than is defamatory speech expressed by any other means.”
Heard’s counsel countered in a March 11 cross pleading that Depp is bent on exacting revenge.
“Mr. Depp used attorney Adam Waldman to orchestrate a false and defamatory smear campaign against Mrs. Heard that has included false and defamatory statements to reporters repeatedly accusing Mrs. Heard of being a liar and a hoax artist and accusing Mrs. Heard of the crime of perjury,” wrote Heards’ attorney Elaine Charlson Bredehoft. “This stream of false and defamatory statements against Mrs. Heard is designed to ruin her life and career simply because she was a victim of domestic abuse and violence at the hands of Mr. Depp and had the courage to finally come forward to end the abuse and violence.”