By Blessing Udeobasi
Actress Amber Heard has lost her plea to have ex husband Johnny Depp’s $50million defamation lawsuit against her dismissed.
This is after Depp’s lawyers disputed the motion made by Amber’s legal team on Tuesday.
Recall that Depp launched a lawsuit against his ex-wife over her 2018 op-ed in the Washington Post where she wrote about her experience of suffering domestic abuse.
Although she didn’t name Depp in the op-ed, his lawyers argued that this falsely implies that he sexually and physically abused her.
Judge Penney Azcarate, presiding over the case at the Fairfax County Court in Virgina, ruled that sufficient evidence had been presented to continue the case against Heard.
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‘If there is a scintilla of evidence that a reasonable juror could weigh, then the matter survives a motion to strike,’’ she said.
She also explained that there was ‘evidence that jurors could weigh that the statements were about the plaintiff (Johnny Depp) that the statements were published and that the statement was false, and that the defendant made the statement knowing it to be false or that the defendant made it so recklessly as to amount to willful disregard for the truth.
‘The weight of that evidence is up to the fact finders.’
Heard’s lawyers called their first witness, Dr Dawn Hughes, a clinical and forensic psychologist.
Heard was due to be the opening witness in the defense but will reportedly be second on the stand her lawyers said.
The 36-year-old Heard has countersued for $100million, claiming that her former partner libeled her by calling her a liar.
