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 (Pierce passed away unexpectedly in 2006 and Anna herself died from a drug overdose in 2007), 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.
“J. Howard’s wishes were always perfectly clear: He gave Anna Nicole Smith approximately $8 million in gifts during his lifetime, and those gifts were all that he intended to give her,” said Eric Brunstad, the Marshalls’ lawyer.
via AAP
