Most of the attention being paid to Johnny Depp’s defamation suit against Amber Heard has been about the fact he brought it in Virginia rather than in California where both of them live. Most speculate Depp chose Virginia due to the fact its anti-SLAPP law is more hospitable to celebrities and public figures than California’s. He has already been rewarded with a ruling permitting the case to remain in Virginia even if all potential witnesses and evidence are located in California. If that ruling wasn’t enough to lead to the supposition that this case is destined to be decided by the Virginia Supreme Court rather than the Circuit Court of Fairfax County, we now have another interesting ruling in an area in which there’s not a lot of controlling precedent: what it takes to “republish” a defamatory statement and thereby re-start the running of the one-year statute of limitations. That last time Virginia saw a controversial ruling involving the republication doctrine was in Eramo v. Rolling Stone, which was settled shortly after it was appealed. If I had to guess, I would predict that the next Virginia Supreme Court opinion dealing with republication is going to be Depp v. Heard (or, rather, Heard v. Depp).
For those not already aware, Johnny Depp is suing his ex-wife, actress Amber Heard, for an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post at the end of 2018. The article, entitled “Amber Heard: I spoke up against sexual violence—and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change,” does not identify Depp by name but, according to Depp, nevertheless implied to readers that Depp is a domestic abuser. In particular, he took issue with the following statements: (1) “I spoke up against sexual violence—and faced our culture’s wrath.” (2) “Then 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.” (3) “I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.” and (4) “I write this as a woman who had to change my phone number weekly because I was getting death threats. For months, I rarely left my apartment, and when I did, I was pursued by camera drones and photographers on foot, on motorcycles and in cars. Tabloid outlets that posted pictures of me spun them in a negative light. I felt as though I was on trial in the court of public opinion—and my life and livelihood depended on myriad judgments far beyond my control.” The Fairfax County Circuit Court held that with the exception of statement #4, these statements were sufficient to imply to readers that Depp is a domestic abuser, considering the couple’s highly publicized divorce in 2016. Key to this conclusion was the court’s determination that the 2018 op-ed amounted to a republication of Heard’s direct accusations against Depp back in 2016.
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