WASHINGTON - The decade-long saga of former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith, her late tycoon husband, his adult son and a multimillion-dollar inheritance will be argued at the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
What otherwise would be a dreary probate dispute testing federal and state court jurisdiction has drawn international tabloid interest because of Smith, an exotic dancer turned 1993 Playmate of the Year and reality-TV star.
"She is planning to attend," says Smith's lawyer, Kent Richland of Los Angeles.
One could hardly imagine a greater contrast in the personas on the legal stage: the buxom blonde Smith, whose official website offers pictures of her in various states of undress and an "All About Me" page, and the nine justices, who tend to be subdued in court.
Despite the natural fodder for comedians, the case offers the justices a chance to resolve a difficult question of the scope of federal judges' authority in certain probate cases.
Typically, state courts have jurisdiction over probate matters, but federal courts can have authority when a dispute involves large sums of money and parties from different states. Over the decades, federal judges have ceded some of that authority to local courts for matters involving wills and estates. The question for the Supreme Court is when federal judges can intervene in such disputes.
Smith married Texas oilman Howard Marshall in 1994 after meeting him at an adult club where she was a dancer. She was 26. He was 89. (She is referred to in the court filings by her real name, Vickie Lynn Marshall.)
Howard Marshall died in August 1995, 14 months after their wedding. According to his widow's legal papers, Marshall's assets had been held in a trust that designated his son, Pierce Marshall, as the primary beneficiary. After Howard Marshall met Smith, he created a separate trust for her benefit, the filing said. Smith asserts that Pierce Marshall "suppressed or destroyed" the documents related to assets designated for her by Howard Marshall.
Two sets of lower-court proceedings paved the way for the current Supreme Court dispute. One series began in a Texas state probate court and was focused on the distribution of assets from Howard Marshall's will and other estate documents. The other began in federal court in California after Smith filed for bankruptcy and eventually included a claim that Pierce Marshall had interfered with the inheritance she was supposed to receive from her late husband's estate. Pierce Marshall denied the allegation.
The Texas proceedings ended with a jury finding that Howard Marshall had left his wife nothing in the will. Pierce Marshall said his father instead had given her gifts of cash and property worth more than $6 million.
The federal proceedings came out the opposite. A U.S. district court judge who reviewed the bankruptcy action ruled that Howard Marshall had intended to set up a trust for his wife and that Pierce Marshall had interfered with it. The court awarded Smith $88 million.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, whose decision is now before the justices, threw out that award and the judgment against Pierce Marshall. The appeals court said in its December 2004 decision that federal judges should not have reviewed the claims related to Howard Marshall's estate.
In his appeal on behalf of Smith, Richland urges the high court to rule that any exemption from federal jurisdiction for probate matters is narrow and never covers bankruptcy-related cases.
Lawyers for Pierce Marshall stress the traditional role of state judges in overseeing disposition of a dead person's assets. Lead lawyer Eric Brunstad said that Smith is simply trying "an end-run around the probate system."
James Wade, a Denver lawyer who filed a brief on behalf of the National College of Probate Judges favoring Pierce Marshall, said the high court has heard other cases of greater significance to probate lawyers. "But none drew interest like this," he said. "I'm going to the oral argument myself."
