Johnny Depp asked to resign from Fantastic Beasts series after court loss, #3 delayed

[JWeinCom]

DonFerrari said:

JWeinCom said:

I stand corrected then, the first statement specifically says sexual violence. Still a bit of wiggle room there, but much more concrete than "domestic abuse". The second one, I dunno. She became a figure representing abuse, whether she actually was abused or not. And, she may have seen how men accused of abuse were protected, even if they did not actually commit abuse. 

Again, actual malice is a specific legal term. It does not mean malicious as we would use it in ordinary life, it means that the person knew it was a lie or stated it with reckless disregard of its truth. If it can be proved she believed what she was saying, then the case would have been dismissed, regardless of whether she said it to hurt Depp. This is the argument Alex Jones is using in all of his lawsuits. You are allowed to say truthful statements, or statements that are true to you, to hurt someone who is a public figure. Defamation is an intentional tort which requires a particular state of mind, in the case of a public figure, to intentionally lie. If that was true to her, she lacked the state of mind, and could not be held liable. If Johnny Depp was a random person though, she could have been found liable either way. The standard is different for public figures.

Either the jury wasn't convinced that she believed it, or Heard did not want her lawyers to argue that she was not actually abused as we would commonly understand it. There may have been some arguments that could have worked but would have been more damaging to her overall than the actual verdict. They chose to have her maintain she was actually abused, which may have been economically the best decision but not the strongest legal argument.

If she used her lawyer and doctor to state she is mentally impaired that would be digging her career even further. If it was a homicide case perhaps one would claim it to avoid jail, but for a "paltry sum" of money don't think she would think of claiming that she was so out of touch with reality that she believed all that was true (she physically abuses JD but believes she is the victim of it, thinks was rapped without being, etc). JD Doctor claimed she had mental issues to which her Doctor claimed otherwise so it would be quite hard to go and reverse that by herself. Plus she committed perjury in several instances in her deposition (with consecutive contradictory claims in sequence) so would be hard to say she is sane and believed all that to be true. If you truly believe Trump is a rapist and genocide writing OP after OP while being famous as well would serve as defense?

As far as I know mentally disabled people have different sentence and let`s say in a case like this wouldn't be found guilty of defamation not because they believe it is true, but because they are incapable of properly understanding the consequences of their acts which isn't the case of Amber.

I'm not her publicist, I don't know or care what kind of defense would best serve her career.

If you truly believed that Trump was a rapist and... a genocide? Then yes, that would generally be a defense, although that deals with objective facts, so it would be a more difficult thing to prove, although I don't know that Trump isn't a rapist, or why he is relevant here. I could say that Biden once stuck his dick in my Honey Bunches of Oats if I believed it, and he couldn't do shit to me if I could prove my belief. That's why I would have argued over whether the statements were objective or subjective, if I was representing Heard and she would allow me. Dunno if it would have worked.

Nobody has EVER been found guilty of defamation. Because it's not a crime. They are found liable. And that is an important difference. In criminal cases, not being able to understand the consequences OR not being able to appreciate something is wrong can both be valid defenses depending on the crime. And sometimes insanity is not a defense at all. But, again, that is criminal law, not civil law. In intentional torts mental capacity is NOT a defense, except in certain cases, defamation against a public figure being one of them. That's cause of the first amendment which is not usually applicable to torts.

You can talk about what you feel about Amber Heard and Johnny Depp all you want, but in terms of the legal aspect, you should not be commenting.

Edit: I'm pretty sure I'm not going to called to an ethics committee for this, but nothing I said in this or any other post should be taken to constitute legal advice of any kind or to establish any client attorney relationship. Please do not write articles about Joe Biden sticking his penis in your cereal without consulting a licensed attorney.

Last edited by JWeinCom - on 02 June 2022