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bill-swift - May 2, 2006
I'm not sure if it's because of her "bubbly" personality, or her immense breasts, but Anna Nicole Smith is one step closer to getting her hands on $1.6 Billion of her dead husband's cash, reports Yahoo! News. While not a decisive win for Smith, she now has another chance to argue that she is entitled to the inheritance of oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II, thanks to a ruling made by the United States Supreme Court.
Smith, who married Marshall in 1994 when she was 26 and he was 89, has steadfastly claimed that her husband promised her half of his estate, estimated to be worth more than $1.6 billion at the time of his death in 1995.
However, the TrimSpa spokesmodel's former stepson, E. Pierce Marshall, has maintained that he was his father's sole heir and that Smith was only entitled to $6 million in gifts that she received in 1994.
A state probate court in Texas sided with Marshall, awarding him his father's entire estate, while a federal bankruptcy judge in California ruled in favor of Smith, awarding her $474 million, because of her claims that Marshall had interfered with the inheritance she was supposed to receive.
The amount was later reduced by a federal district judge and then tossed out all together by a federal appeals court, which ruled the court in Texas, where the Marshalls lived, trumped any other jurisdiction.
Not so, according to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the appeals court was wrong and that the federal district court properly asserted jurisdiction over Smith's claims against her stepson.
Now, I'm no lawyer, and I'm definitely no Supreme Court justice, but I think the ruling might have something to do with a few old men imagining they too might one day shuffle off this mortal coil in the bossoms of a woman like Anna Nicole Smith. Also, keep in mind that the Supreme Court only hears a select few cases a year, making this whole story that much more ridiculous.
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