SayAnything Blog
Only In America
Comments (20) | Full Version | Back
Bat1 - 08:05am on 05/01/2006
The possibilities for commentary over this are simply too mind boggling for me to contemplate. Have fun!

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that one-time stripper and Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith could pursue part of her late husband's oil fortune.

Justices gave new legal life to Smith's bid to collect millions of dollars from the estate of J. Howard Marshall II. Her late husband's estate has been estimated at as much as $1.6 billion…

She was a 26-year-old topless dancer when she married Marshall, then 89, in 1994. He died the following year, setting off an intense family fight.

At issue in the legal battle was competing court jurisdiction. A Texas court held a five-month trial before deciding that Smith was entitled to nothing from Marshall's estate. Smith brought a separate claim in federal court in California.

Justices said Monday that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was wrong in ruling that federal courts could not handle Smith's case.

Smith, the spokeswoman for a diet products company, had been awarded $474 million by a federal bankruptcy judge. That was later reduced by a federal district judge and then thrown out altogether by the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit. The case now goes back to California.

Read Comments (20)