Fairfax County Chief Judge Penney Azcarate dealt with this in an August 17, 2021 order; first, the facts:
In the underlying action for defamation, Plaintiff John C. Depp II … is suing Defendant Amber Laura Heard … for statements Defendant made in an op-ed published by The Washington Post in 2018. Plaintiff, believing that Defendant's statements falsely characterized him as a domestic abuser, filed his defamation claim on March 1, 2019.
Prior to the commencement of Plaintiff's suit in Fairfax County Circuit Court, Plaintiff brought suit in the United Kingdom … against News Group Newspapers, the publisher of The Sun newspaper, for claims of defamation regarding The Sun's publication of a 2018 column referring to Plaintiff as a "wife beater." On November 2, 2020, the Judge in the UK litigation ruled against Plaintiff, finding The Sun's statements were substantially true and thus a defense to defamation. On March 25, 2021, the UK Court of Appeal upheld the trial court's ruling against Plaintiff and denied his application for permission to appeal. Plaintiff's litigation in the UK against The Sun became final on April 6, 2021, and Defendant subsequently moved for leave to amend her plea in bar to dismiss Plaintiff's Complaint based on collateral estoppel, res judicata, comity, and the Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act.
Ultimately, Defendant argues the UK's finding that Plaintiff is a "wife beater" should be given preclusive effect in this Court given Plaintiff's previous opportunity to fully and fairly adjudicate such issue….
Judge Azcarate held generally that, under Virginia law, the decision against Depp in (1) his lawsuit against one defendant (The Sun) for its statements wasn't binding in (2) a case by Depp against another defendant (Heard) for her statements—even if the gist of the statements (that Depp had beaten Heard) was similar. The law in other states might lead to a different result, under a doctrine called "nonmutual collateral estoppel," under which it would be enough that the English case was resolved against Depp, even if it hadn't been resolved in favor of Heard. But Virginia has rejected that doctrine. Here are the details:
