Anna Nicole Smith Loses Her Last Big Case

 

Anna Nicole Smith and one time husband J. Howard Marshall are both years dead. but their relationship has lived on in the form of an ongoing courtroom drama surrounding whether or not. Former Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith's heir is not entitled to share in the $1.6 billion estate of her elderly Texas husband, the Supreme Court ruled, apparently ending a Dickensian legal struggle.

Because the battle over oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II's wealth outlived most of the parties to the suits, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. compared it to "Bleak House," Charles Dickens' novel about a lawsuit that never ends.Vickie Lynn Marshall, who was better known as Anna Nicole Smith, married the 89 year old billionaire a year before his death in 1995. Although he had given her many gifts and apparently promised many more, she was not included in his will.

She sued in Texas probate court, alleging that Marshall's son Pierce, a prime heir, had conspired to deny her as much as $400 million that her late husband had promised. That case went to trial, and she lost.

She filed separately for bankruptcy in Los Angeles. Pierce Marshall filed a claim against her in California bankruptcy court, accusing her of defaming him. She filed a counter claim asserting that Pierce Marshall had schemed to deny her the money his father had promised, and won big. In 2000, the bankruptcy judge awarded her $475 million in damages, essentially the amount she had sought from the estate.

Since then, the case has been in the hands of appellate judges, seeking a ruling on which court had the authority to decide the matter: the state probate court in Texas or the federal bankruptcy court in California. The case made several trips to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco as well as two trips to the Supreme Court.  

The US Supreme Court has ruled against Anna Nicole Smith’s heirs, bringing an end to their US$88 million claim to the estate of the late J. Howard Marshall II.

Marshall met Anna Nicole, a former playboy playmate, in a Houston strip club, and the two were wed in 1994 when he was 89 and she was 26. Marshall died the following year on August 4 after only 14 months of marriage to Smith; he failed to include her in his trust or will.

Smith challenged the will, claiming that her deceased husband promised to leave her more than $300 million in addition to the cash and gifts he gave her during their brief marriage. A bankruptcy judge in California originally decided in her favor, awarding her $475 million from Marshall’s estate, with a federal judge reducing that amount to $89 million in 2002.

Since then the case has been scattered over multiple jurisdictions in Louisiana, Texas, California and eventually in 2006 up to the Supreme Court, which allowed Smith the right to try and collect on the inheritance by sending the case back to the courts.

In 2010 however, a Houston jury said Marshall was mentally fit and under no undue pressure when he wrote a will leaving nearly all of his $1.6 billion estate to his son, Pierce Marshall, and nothing to Smith, a decision that has been upheld by the federal appeals court in a 5-4 vote.

The legal case began more than 15 years ago and many of the story’s principal protagonists have died, which further complicated the case that reached the highest US court.

The ruling, which was a huge victory for Marshall’s heirs, was important because it decided that the bankruptcy courts did not have constitutional authority to rule outside of a bankruptcy court on a state law counterclaim.