Amber Heard is not happy to learn that one of her insurance companies, New York Marine and General Insurance Co, doesn't think it should be on the hook to pay part of the $10 million she owes ex-husband Johnny Depp following the end of their highly publicized defamation trial. Amber is now countersuing the insurer to try to get them to pay.
Heard took out a $1 million insurance policy at some point before the trial in order to protect herself against the possibility that Depp might successfully sue her for defamation of character. She says she paid for the policy and the insurer agreed to pay any legal fees and judgments up to that $1 million margin. But the company went to court to argue that since Heard could be argued to have committed "willful misconduct," they aren't responsible for holding up their end of that bargain and that the policy she'd taken out should be considered basically null and void.
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Heard is now countersuing the insurer, arguing that the deal she signed was unconditional and that any legal loopholes don't apply. So she wants the court to force the company to pay up.
Heard had another insurance policy, that one with Travelers Insurance, for $500,000, and it was Travelers that originally sued New York Marine and General for half of the defense costs it had paid for in Heard's case, a suit that led New York Marine to file its own suit against Heard on the "willful misconduct" rationale.
It's yet another financial complication in an already tangled case, and comes after reports that Depp has filed an appeal of his own to get out of the $2 million judgment he owes Heard, also for defamation. With so many suits and countersuits working their way through the courts, it seems a safe bet that it will be some time before this all gets worked out and the dust finally settles.
