Johnny Depp is permitted to proceed with Amber Heard $50 million defamation suit

Last updated: August 18, 2021 7:06 AM

3 Min Read

This is a shocker! A judge has ruled that Johnny Depp’s two-year-old defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard will not be dismissed, meaning the case is set to proceed to a trial next year.

Fairfax County Chief Judge Penney Azcarate rejected Heard’s motion to dismiss the case – Heard’s third such motion since Depp filed his lawsuit in March 2019.

Heard tried to get the Virginia lawsuit thrown out citing the ruling of a London judge last year in a libel lawsuit Depp filed against the publisher of The Sun tabloid and subsequently lost following a contentious legal showdown in an English courtroom.

Johnny Depp Libel Trial Resumes In London — Johnny Depp arrives on the fifth day of his libel trial against News Group Newspapers (NGN), at the High Court in London, on July 13, 2020. – Depp is suing the publishers of The Sun and the author of the article for the claims that called him a “wife-beater” in April 2018. (Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)

The London judge concluded that the 2018 article branding Depp a “wife beater” was not libelous and that “the great majority” of Heard’s claims of domestic abuse “could be proved to the civil standard.”

But Virginia’s Judge Azcarate concluded that the two cases were not the same – Heard was not a party in the London lawsuit, although she was a witness for The Sun – and thus her argument for dismissal failed under well-established legal precedents governing when civil cases can be dismissed.

“Defendant’s claim that refusing to recognize the U.K. Judgment in this case would set a dangerous precedent is unfounded,” Azcarate said in her opinion. “If anything, upholding English libel judgments in the United States would create the chilling effect and could create a dangerous precedent. Accordingly, this Court is unpersuaded by Defendant’s argument.”

Depp Libel Trial Continues In London — American Actress Amber Heard arrives at Royal Courts of Justice, Strand on July 14, 2020 in London, England. American actor Johnny Depp is taking News Group Newspapers, publishers of The Sun, to court over allegations that he was violent towards his ex-wife, Amber Heard, 34. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

“Mr. Depp is most gratified by the Court’s decision,” the actor’s lawyer Ben Chew of the DC office of Brown Rudnick told Deadline.

In a recent interview with Britain’s The Times, which is part of the same publishing group owned by Rupert Murdoch that also owns the tabloid The Sun, Depp called the last five years of dealing with the case “surreal” and referred to a Hollywood “boycott” of him.

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