Two Courts, Two Verdicts — Why London and Virginia Reached Opposite Conclusions

The case in brief

Johnny Depp brought a libel claim in London against the publisher of The Sun over a 2018 article. He lost: on 2 November 2020 the High Court found the newspaper had proved the substance of what it published. He then sued Amber Heard for defamation in Virginia over a 2018 opinion article, and on 1 June 2022 a jury found largely in his favour, while also awarding Heard damages on one of her counterclaims.

The sequence, as documented

1. February 2015

   Depp and Heard marry. Heard files for divorce in May 2016; the divorce is finalised in January 2017.

2. December 2018

   Heard publishes an opinion article about domestic abuse in a US newspaper. She does not name Depp in it.

3. July 2020

   Depp's libel trial against News Group Newspapers is heard in London.

4. 2 November 2020

   Mr Justice Nicol dismisses the claim, finding the newspaper proved the substantial truth of the allegation on twelve of fourteen alleged incidents.

5. March 2021

   The Court of Appeal refuses Depp permission to appeal.

6. April–June 2022

   Depp v. Heard is tried before a jury in Fairfax County, Virginia, and televised.

7. 1 June 2022

   The jury finds for Depp on three statements and awards him $10m compensatory plus punitive damages capped by statute at $350,000; it also finds for Heard on one counterclaim statement and awards her $2m.

8. December 2022

   The parties settle. Heard's team confirms a payment of $1m, which Depp directs to charities.

What is confirmed

• PUBLIC RECORD: both judgments exist in full, are published, and can be read in the sources below.
• PUBLIC RECORD: in England the defendant newspaper carried the burden of proving truth, and the judge found it had done so. In Virginia the plaintiff carried the burden of proving falsity and actual malice, and the jury found he had.
• PUBLIC RECORD: the Virginia jury also found against Depp's side on one of Heard's counterclaims.
• PUBLIC RECORD: the case was settled in December 2022 without any further trial.

Why the two results are not actually a contradiction

English libel law places the burden on the publisher to prove that what it wrote was substantially true. US defamation law places the burden on the person suing, and where the claimant is a public figure, they must also prove the statement was made with actual malice. Different parties were suing, different statements were at issue, and the standard of proof ran in opposite directions. Two different questions can honestly produce two different answers.

The parties were different too, and that matters more than it sounds. In London, Depp sued a newspaper; Heard was a witness, not a defendant, and had no case of her own to run. In Virginia he sued Heard directly over three statements in an article that never named him, and she counterclaimed over statements made by his lawyer. Neither court was asked to deliver a general verdict on the marriage, and neither did.

The tribunals were different in kind as well. London was decided by a judge who published a long written judgment setting out, incident by incident, what he found proved and why. Virginia was decided by a jury that returned a verdict form, gave no reasons and was not required to. One produces a document you can argue with; the other produces a result you cannot interrogate.

What the televised trial changed

Continue reading · What happened next?A Two-Year Marriage and Eight Years of Filings: What the Pitt–Jolie Record ConfirmsThe marriage lasted two years. The litigation lasted eight, ran across two countries, survived one disqualified judge, and outlived the divorce itself in a fight over a French vineyard.

The Virginia proceedings were broadcast live and streamed in full, which the London trial was not. That single procedural decision — cameras in a Fairfax County courtroom — is why one of these cases is a cultural event and the other is a citation.

It also produced the strange situation in which millions of people formed a firm view of a case by watching cross-examination clips out of order, while the more detailed factual findings sat in a written English judgment almost nobody read. Both are public. Only one was entertaining.

What both sides said afterwards

Depp said after the Virginia verdict that the jury had 'given me my life back'. Heard said she was 'heartbroken' and that she believed the verdict was a setback for other women. Both statements were issued in their own names and are quoted here as statements, not as findings.

What remains disputed

Essentially all of the underlying factual allegations remain contested between the parties, and the two courts assessed them under different rules. Forgotten Frame reports what each court decided and does not adjudicate between them.

Since then

Depp has continued working, principally in European productions, and returned to directing. Heard relocated to Spain and has continued to take film roles. Neither has reopened the litigation.

RelatedAnother dispute where the filings say considerably less than the coverage