Tag: lawsuit

Depp awarded $10M, Heard $2M in split libel lawsuit verdict

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FAIRFAX, Va. — A jury awarded actor Johnny Depp more than $10 million Wednesday in his libel lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard, vindicating his stance that Heard fabricated claims that she was abused by Depp before and during their brief marriage.

The jury also found Heard was defamed by a lawyer for Depp who accused her of creating a detailed hoax, including roughing up their apartment to look worse for police. The jury awarded her $2 million in damages.

The verdicts bring an end to a televised trial that Depp had hoped would help restore his reputation, though it turned into a spectacle of a vicious marriage. Throughout the trial, fans — overwhelmingly on Depp’s side — lined up overnight for coveted courtroom seats. Spectators who couldn’t get in gathered on the street to cheer Depp and jeer Heard whenever they appeared outside.

Heard, who was stoic in the courtroom as the verdict was read, said she was heartbroken. [infographic credit=”” align=”center”]

Depp, who was not inside the courtroom Wednesday, sued Heard for libel in Fairfax County Circuit Court over a December 2018 op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” His lawyers said he was defamed by the article even though it never mentioned his name.

The jury found in Depp’s favor on all three of his claims relating to specific statements in the 2018 piece. In evaluating Heard’s counterclaims, jurors considered three statements in which a lawyer for Depp called her allegations a hoax. They found she was defamed by one of them, in which the lawyer claimed that she and friends “spilled a little wine and roughed the place up, got their stories straight,” and called police.

The jury found Depp should receive $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages, but the judge said state law caps punitive damages at $350,000, meaning Depp was awarded $10.35 million.

While the case was ostensibly about libel, most of the testimony focused on whether Heard had been physically and sexually abused, as she claimed. Heard enumerated more than a dozen alleged assaults, including a fight in Australia — where Depp was shooting a “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel — in which Depp lost the tip of his middle finger and Heard said she was sexually assaulted with a liquor bottle.

Depp said he never hit Heard and that she was the abuser, though Heard’s attorneys highlighted years-old text messages Depp sent apologizing to Heard for his behavior as well as profane texts he sent to a friend in which Depp said he wanted to kill Heard and defile her dead body.

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In some ways, the trial was a replay of a lawsuit Depp filed in the United Kingdom against a British tabloid after he was described as a “wife beater.” The judge in that case ruled in the newspaper’s favor after finding that Heard was telling the truth in her descriptions of abuse.

In the Virginia case, Depp had to prove not only that he never assaulted Heard, but that Heard’s article — which focused primarily on public policy related to domestic violence — defamed him. He also had to prove that Heard wrote the article with actual malice. And to claim damages he had to prove that her article caused the damage to his reputation as opposed to any number of articles before and after Heard’s piece that detailed the allegations against him.

Depp, in his final testimony to the jury, said the trial gave him a chance to clear his name in a way that the the U.K trial never allowed.

“No matter what happens, I did get here and I did tell the truth and I have spoken up for what I’ve been carrying on my back, reluctantly, for six years,” Depp said.

Heard, on the other hand, said the trial has been an ordeal inflicted by an orchestrated smear campaign led by Depp.

“Johnny promised me — promised me — that he’d ruin my life, that he’d ruin my career. He’d take my life from me,” Heard said in her final testimony.

The case captivated millions through its gavel-to-gavel television coverage and impassioned followers on social media who dissected everything from the actors’ mannerisms to the possible symbolism of what they were wearing. Both performers emerge from the trial with reputations in tatters with unclear prospects for their careers.

Eric Rose, a crisis management and communications expert in Los Angeles, called the trial a “classic murder-suicide.”

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard in the courtroom for closing arguments at the Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse in Fairfax, Va. on May 27, 2022. (STEVE HELBER/Associated Press Pool)

“From a reputation management perspective, there can be no winners,” he said. “They’ve bloodied each other up. It becomes more difficult now for studios to hire either actor because you’re potentially alienating a large segment of your audience who may not like the fact that you have retained either Johnny or Amber for a specific project because feelings are so strong now.”

Depp, a three-time best actor Oscar nominee, had until recent years been a bankable star. His turn as Capt. Jack Sparrow in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” film helped turn it into a global franchise, but he’s lost that role. (Heard and Depp’s teams each blame the other.) He was also replaced as the title character in the third “Fantastic Beasts” spin-off film, “The Crimes of Grindelwald.”

Despite testimony at the trial that Depp could be violent, abusive and out of control, he received a standing ovation Tuesday night in London after performing for about 40 minutes with Jeff Beck at the Royal Albert Hall. He has previously toured with Joe Perry and Alice Cooper as the group Hollywood Vampires.

Heard’s acting career has been more modest, and her only two upcoming roles are in a small film and the upcoming “Aquaman” sequel due out next year.

Depp’s lawyers fought to keep the case in Virginia, in part because state law provided some legal advantages compared with California, where the two reside. A judge ruled that Virginia was an acceptable forum for the case because The Washington Post’s printing presses and online servers are in the county.

Lubbock’s abortion ban takes effect after judge rejects court challenge

A federal district judge dismissed on Tuesday a lawsuit to block a voter-approved abortion ban from taking effect in Lubbock, saying Planned Parenthood did not have standing to sue the city.

The decision comes just weeks after Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit to stop the Lubbock ordinance, which outlaws abortions and empowers “the unborn child’s mother, father, grandparents, siblings and half-siblings” to sue someone for damages if they help others access an abortion. 

In May, voters passed the “sanctuary city for the unborn” after it was shot down by City Council members who said it conflicted with state law and could be costly to defend. It took effect June 1.

Abortion rights advocates typically sue to prevent government officials from enforcing an unconstitutional abortion restriction. But the Lubbock ordinance is enforced solely by private citizens, not state or local actors. That enforcement structure has not been extensively tested in the courts, but the judge said his rulings could not prevent private parties from filing civil lawsuits in state court.[pullquote speaker=”Judge James Wesley Hendrix” photo=”” align=”right” background=”off” border=”none” shadow=”off”]Because the ability to remedy a plaintiff’s injury through a favorable decision is a prerequisite to a plaintiff’s standing to sue — an ability absent here — the Court dismisses the case for lack of jurisdiction. [/pullquote]

“Because the ability to remedy a plaintiff’s injury through a favorable decision is a prerequisite to a plaintiff’s standing to sue — an ability absent here — the Court dismisses the case for lack of jurisdiction,” Judge James Wesley Hendrix wrote.

Almost 30 cities have sought to ban abortions by declaring themselves so-called sanctuaries for the unborn. Lubbock, with a population of about 259,000, is the largest city to do so and the first to have an abortion provider within its city limits. Planned Parenthood opened a clinic to offer birth control and other services in Lubbock last year and began providing abortions this spring.

Ken Lambrecht, president of Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, said the Lubbock clinic remains open for sexual and reproductive health care services.

He said the abortion ban “violates patients’ constitutional rights.”

“We will continue to stand up for (them) with all of our resources,” he said.

The city of Lubbock said in a news release it would continue to “vigorously defend the ordinance” if additional litigation is filed.

The ruling is a window into how courts may receive lawsuits about a newly passed state law that bans abortions as early as six weeks. It follows the same blueprint as the Lubbock ordinance by barring state officials from enforcing the law. But the state law is far broader, allowing anyone to sue those who assist with an abortion after a fetal heartbeat has been detected, such as by driving someone to a clinic or paying for the procedure. 

People who sue do not have to be connected to someone who had an abortion or be residents of Texas. The law is set to take effect in September, and a  legal challenge is expected.

Neither the state law nor the Lubbock ordinance makes exceptions for people pregnant as a result of rape or incest.

In Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court said states can’t ban abortions before the fetus can survive outside the womb, starting around 23 or 24 weeks.

Mark Lee Dickson, director of the Right To Life of East Texas and pastor behind the “sanctuary city for the unborn” movement, said the court’s ruling was an “emphatic vindication.”

“We have said from the beginning that this ordinance is completely bulletproof from pre-enforcement lawsuits,” he said.

Adriana Piñon, policy counsel and senior staff attorney of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, which sued Lubbock with Planned Parenthood, said the organization was disappointed the court did not hear the “substance” of the lawsuit. She said the people in Lubbock would not be able to “access essential health care” as a result.

The ACLU of Texas previously sued seven East Texas towns that passed similar measures, but the lawsuit was dropped. Those cities had differently worded ordinances, and none of the cities was home to an abortion provider. The lawsuit was dropped.

 

U.S. Supreme Court rejects Johnson & Johnson appeal of $2 billion talc verdict

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is leaving in place a $2 billion verdict in favor of women who claim they developed ovarian cancer from using Johnson & Johnson talc products.

The justices did not comment Tuesday in rejecting Johnson & Johnson’s appeal. The company argued that it was not treated fairly in facing one trial involving 22 cancer sufferers who came from 12 states and different backgrounds.

A Missouri jury initially awarded the women $4.7 billion, but a state appeals court dropped two women from the suit and reduced the award to $2 billion. The jury found that the company’s talc products contain asbestos and that asbestos-laced talc can cause ovarian cancer. The company disputes both points.

Johnson & Johnson, which is based in New Brunswick, New Jersey, has stopped selling its iconic talc-based Johnson’s Baby Powder in the U.S. and Canada, though it remains on the market elsewhere.

The company faces thousands of lawsuits from women who claim asbestos in the powder caused their cancer. Talc is a mineral similar in structure to asbestos, which is known to cause cancer, and they are sometimes obtained from the same mines. The cosmetics industry in 1976 agreed to make sure its talc products do not contain detectable amounts of asbestos.

The lead attorney for the women during the trial, Mark Lanier, praised the court’s refusal to hear Johnson & Johnson’s appeal. 

“This decision sends a clear message to the rich and powerful: You will be held to account when you cause grievous harm under our system of equal justice under law,” Lanier said.

Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh did not take a part in the court’s action. Alito owns $15,000 to $50,000 in Johnson & Johnson stock. Kavanaugh’s father headed the trade association that lobbied against labeling talc a carcinogen and including a warning label on talc products.

Ethicists contacted by The Associated Press said they did not think E. Edward Kavanaugh’s role required his son to step aside from the case.

Trump administration sued for proposing addition of citizenship question to census

The Mexican American Legislative Caucus and the Texas Senate Hispanic Caucus are suing the Trump administration in hopes of blocking the addition of a citizenship question to the once-a-decade census of every person living in the United States.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday in a Maryland-based federal court, the Texas-based groups allege that the addition of the controversial question is unconstitutional because it will lead to a disproportionate undercount of Latino and Asian residents, noncitizens and their family members.

That undercount would endanger billions of dollars tied to social services funding and deprive those individuals of equal representation in the U.S. House and during the redrawing of political boundaries that follows each census count, the plaintiffs allege.

The lawsuit against the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Commerce comes about two months after the bureau announced it would add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census questionnaire. Since then, demographers, local officials and community organizers have been sounding the alarm about the role the question would play in depressing response rates among Texas immigrants and their families.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of more than a dozen plaintiffs — including several Texas-based nonprofits that advocate for Latino residents and legislative Latino caucuses out of multiple states — who say they are seeking to “preserve the integrity” of the census count.

The Trump administration’s “inclusion of a citizenship question in the 2020 Census is arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and otherwise not in accordance with law,” the plaintiffs wrote in their filing.

The suit alleges the citizenship question violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause because it is “motivated by racial animus” toward Latinos, Asians, noncitizens and immigrants and would amount to a violation of the Enumerations and Apportionment Clauses.

Massive in both size and population, Texas has long been a hard-to-count state because of the millions of Texans who fall into the categories of people who pose the biggest challenges for the headcount — immigrants, college students, and children younger than 5 years old, to name a few.

In announcing the addition of the citizenship question back in March, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross indicated the citizenship-related data was necessary for “more effective enforcement” of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Those working toward an accurate count said they were already working from behind even before the Trump administration announced it would add the citizenship question to the questionnaire. They said they were bracing for challenges both practical — Hurricane Harvey displacement, internet accessibility and fewer funds with which to knock on doors — and political — namely anti-immigrant rhetoric and fears that people would be too afraid to respond to a government questionnaire — that would make Texas even tougher to count.

The census determines how many representatives Texas is entitled to elect to Congress and serves as a roadmap for the distribution of billions of federal dollars to the state and local communities, including funding for low-income housing, medical assistance and transportation projects.

As they embark on preparations for the 2020 count, local officials have also stepped into the legal fight over the citizenship question in court. Earlier this month, three border counties — El Paso, Hidalgo and Cameron — joined a coalition of more than 30 states, cities and counties that has also sued to block the inclusion of the citizenship question.

Meanwhile, the state’s Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton, has made clear he has no intention of fighting the question. In an op-ed published in March, Paxton chalked up concerns about the citizenship question as “partisan uproar” that is not “being driven by the facts.”

The Census Bureau is still waiting for congressional approval of the 2020 questionnaire that includes the citizenship question. The bureau has not asked all households about citizenship since the 1950 census, though it does ask about citizenship as part of annual surveys that only cover a sample of U.S. residents.

Arkansas allowed to enact restrictions on abortion pills

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed Arkansas to enforce restrictions on how so-called “abortion pills” can be administered while a legal challenge to the restrictions proceeds, which critics say effectively ends that option for women in the state.

The justices didn’t comment in rejecting an appeal from the Planned Parenthood affiliate in Arkansas that asked the court to review an appeals court ruling and reinstate a lower court order that had blocked the law from taking effect.

The law says doctors who provide abortion pills must hold a contract with another physician who has admitting privileges at a hospital and who would agree to handle complications — and Planned Parenthood says it has been unable to find any able to do so.

The law is similar to a provision in Texas law that the Supreme Court struck down in 2016.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the court order barring enforcement of the law, but put its ruling on hold while Planned Parenthood appealed to the Supreme Court.

The legal fight over the restrictions isn’t over, but the state is now free to enforce them for the time being.

“As Attorney General, I have fully defended this law at every turn and applaud the Supreme Court’s decision against Planned Parenthood today,” Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, a Republican, said in a statement. “Protecting the health and well-being of women and the unborn will always be a priority. We are a pro-life state and always will be as long as I am attorney general.”

Planned Parenthood had offered pills to end pregnancies at its clinics in Fayetteville and Little Rock, but it said Tuesday that it was notifying patients that it could no longer do so because of the ruling. It said it would move quickly for emergency relief in the lower court, saying the ruling effectively makes Arkansas the first state in the country to ban medication abortions.

Planned Parenthood has said it’s unable to find any Arkansas obstetricians willing to handle hospital admissions, saying many doctors cited fear of being harassed over an association with an abortion provider, objections from employers or a personal opposition to abortion.

The group has said that if the law stands, Arkansas would be the only state where women would not have access to a pair of drugs that end pregnancies: mifepristone, which makes it difficult for a fetus to attach to the uterine wall, and misoprostol, which causes the body to expel it, similar to a miscarriage.

Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer surgical abortions at its Arkansas health centers, but a third facility in Little Rock that isn’t operated by the group does. The organization says preventing women from obtaining medication abortions creates an undue burden, which is the standard the Supreme Court has set to measure whether restrictions go too far in limiting women who want the procedure.

“This dangerous law also immediately ends access to safe, legal abortion at all but one health center in the state,” Dawn Laguens, vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement. “If that’s not an undue burden, what is? This law cannot and must not stand. We will not stop fighting for every person’s right to access safe, legal abortion.”

The state had argued that the restriction was needed to protect women from any complications from the abortion pills. But Planned Parenthood argued that such complications are rare, and that those complications can be handled by hospitals without contacting the group’s physicians.

The 2015 law is among several abortion restrictions the predominantly Republican state has enacted over the past several years that have been the subject of legal challenges.

Lawsuit requires Texas prison to add air conditioning

AUSTIN — A Texas prison will install permanent air conditioning as the result of a recently settled federal lawsuit, but despite the agreement, thousands of state inmates are still feeling the heat.

Under terms of a settlement finalized earlier this month, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice will install permanent air conditioning in the Wallace Pack Unit, northwest of Houston, by May 1, 2020.

“The extreme, suffocating heat in Texas prisons that has claimed the lives of at least 14 inmates since 2007 does not seem to have an end in sight as both Texas and the United States federal government have failed to take action,” according to a report by the University of Texas School of Law Human Rights Clinic. “The TDCJ’s demonstrated lack of care for its over 150,000 inmates’ medical needs … violates numerous domestic and international standards, most notably the human right to health, and further demonstrates the United States’ violation of international standards protecting inmates’ rights.”

Also, according to the UT report, “the Texas Commission on Jail Standards originally issued its mandate requiring air conditioning in county jails in 1978, at least a decade before most TDCJ prisons had even been built, meaning that heat-trapping TDCJ prison units were being built concurrently with air conditioned county jails within the state.” Under settlement terms, “subject to legislative approval,” the air conditioning “will keep the heat index at 88 degrees Fahrenheit or less in those housing areas.”

[pullquote speaker=”Natalia Cornelio, TCRP criminal justice director” photo=”” align=”left” background=”on” border=”all” shadow=”on”]For decades, people have been getting sick, or even dying, as a result of inhumane prison conditions at TDCJ[/pullquote]

The agreement also requires TDJC to take appropriate precautions for inmates in 26 “heat-sensitive” classifications, “within our current infrastructure for those who are at high risk, minimizing the likelihood of future litigation,” according to the agency’s statement. “When offenders are identified to be at the highest risk level, they will be transferred to existing facilities that have air conditioning.” To accomplish this, some units will need additional infrastructure security measures to accommodate a range of offender classification levels.”

The agreement calls for temporarily air conditioning Pack prisoners from April 15 through Oct.15 in 2018 and 2019.

The TDJC argued that it was meeting constitutional standards at Pack by opening windows, air-conditioning respite areas, and providing ice water, showers, fans and a relaxed dress code.

In a statement issued in response to an earlier ruling in the case, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the called-for measures were “unnecessary.”

Paxton, in the same statement, said retrofitting the Pack Unit with air conditioning could cost $20 million.

However, a TDJC spokesman said in a Tuesday email last week that the agency has no estimated cost for installing Pack air conditioning under the settlement terms.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees and expenses were set at $4.5 million under the settlement.

The Texas Civil Rights Project, co-counsel in the lawsuit, hailed the agreement.

“For decades, people have been getting sick, or even dying, as a result of inhumane prison conditions at TDCJ,” said Natalia Cornelio, TCRP criminal justice director. “Thousands of people, including prisoners, guards, staff, visitors and attorneys, will benefit from these changes in the Wallace Pack Unit; changes we expect will reverberate to every prison in our state.”

Houston-area man sues after flooding washes away wife’s casket

Associated Press

DALLAS A Houston-area man has filed a lawsuit after his wife’s casket was unearthed and carried away by recent floodwaters and deposited along a trail where it was discovered by people on a morning walk.

Richard Lee, of Richmond, said in his lawsuit that his late wife’s casket floated away because of “improper burial” and caused him “post-traumatic-stress disorder, nausea, shock, grief … and outraged feelings.”

Images of the casket on the trail last week circulated widely, but it’s only the latest example of a recurring problem that cemeteries face during severe weather.
Carolyn Lee’s casket, which remained closed, floated from Riceville Cemetery last week after 11 inches of rain fell in some parts of the Houston area, resulting in flooding that damaged thousands of homes and other structures and forced motorists to abandon at least 2,500 vehicles across Houston.

The rains swelled Keegans Bayou, which consumed the adjacent cemetery that’s owned by Riceville Mt. Olive Baptist Church, where the Lees worshipped for decades before her death in 2007 from lung disease. She was 59.

“Bodies aren’t supposed to come out of the ground,” Richard Lee’s lawyer Annie McAdams said. “Something went wrong here.”

It’s not uncommon for floods and hurricanes to wash away caskets. After Hurricane Rita struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, there were more than 300 bodies that were missing from cemeteries in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. Flood waters carried some caskets about 20 miles from where they were buried.

Hurricane Ike in 2008 dredged up caskets in Orange, a southeast Texas city, where they were found overturned and flung against one another. Days after Hurricane Irene came ashore in 2011, floodwaters coursed through a Vermont cemetery, pulled coffins from the ground and scattered remains for miles.

Lucy McCann, the director of the Louisiana Cemetery Board, said past hurricanes haven’t resulted in any regulatory changes for burials.

“You can’t change the style of burial if people want to bury a certain way,” McCann said, adding that above-ground burial sites are occasionally breached by rising water but seldom are underground ones.

Kyle Smith, spokesman for the Texas Funeral Service Commission, said the problem has not spurred changes in state rules, noting a number of factors can lead to a wayward casket, including the severity of a flood, the terrain and whether it was buried on a hillside.

Typically cemeteries in flood-prone areas have policies that require caskets be buried within vaults, Smith said.

Carolyn Lee’s casket was placed in a concrete vault, which in many cases have holes that allow underground water to seep in and then back out. The top of the vault was above-ground, but it’s not clear whether the floodwater pushed the top aside and flushed out the casket, McAdams said. She said it isn’t known if other caskets at the cemetery were also unearthed.

Neither the Robinson Funeral Home, which is named as the defendant in the case, nor the Riceville Mt. Olive Baptist Church, which owns and operates the cemetery, responded to calls seeking comment about the lawsuit.

Riceville Mt. Olive has offered to provide a discount for reburial, McAdams said, but Lee said he has found the offer and the church’s conduct objectionable.

After water receded from the cemetery, Richard Lee went to see his wife’s gravesite but was told by a church representative he wouldn’t be allowed on the land until he first signed a statement promising that he wouldn’t seek damages from the church, McAdams said.

Carolyn Lee’s body is being kept at another Houston funeral home until it can be interred again. That home offered to donate a new casket, vault and services for reburial, McAdams said.

Texas gun-rights group sues over law that limits literature distribution

EMILY SCHMALL
Associated Press

ARLINGTON — North Texas gun rights advocates are suing the city of Arlington for amending an ordinance that they claim is discriminatory and infringes upon free speech rights, in the latest sign of growing tensions among gun activists and government forces.

The amendment bars people from approaching motorists at high-traffic intersections and busy roads, which the group Open Carry Tarrant County says violates free speech by barring its members from passing out literature and pocket-size copies of the U.S. Constitution. Continue reading Texas gun-rights group sues over law that limits literature distribution