Anna Nicole Smith and the Estate Battle That Reached the Supreme Court
Some estate disputes stay in probate court. Anna Nicole Smith's ended up in front of the United States Supreme Court — twice — in a saga that lasted over 2 decades and outlived her.
How It Started
In 1994, Smith married oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II, who was 89 at the time; she was 26. He died just over a year later. The core dispute wasn't really about Smith's own estate plan at all- it was about whether Marshall had promised her a share of his fortune, reportedly worth several hundred million dollars, and whether that promise should have been reflected in his estate documents.
Where It Went Wrong
Although many assumed Smith would inherit a substantial portion of his fortune, she was not named in Marshall's will or living trust.
A verbal promise, not a documented plan. Smith claimed Marshall intended to leave her a substantial gift, but this was disputed by Marshall's son, E. Pierce Marshall, who argued the estate plan (which largely excluded her) reflected his father's real intentions. Because the promise wasn't clearly documented in updated estate planning instruments, it became a matter of competing testimony rather than settled fact.
Overlapping jurisdiction chaos. The case bounced between a Texas probate court and a federal bankruptcy court in California, each reaching different conclusions- a jurisdictional tangle that produced two separate Supreme Court rulings (in 2006 and 2011) on procedural questions about which court actually had authority to decide the matter.
In 2006, Smith appeared to achieve a major victory when a bankruptcy court in Texas awarded her $474 million. However, that judgment was later overturned through subsequent legal proceedings.
The fight outlived everyone involved. Marshall died in 1995. Smith died in 2007. Pierce Marshall died in 2006. The litigation continued without any of the original parties alive to weigh in, dragging on for roughly two decades in total.
No clean resolution for either side's heirs. Ultimately, courts ruled against Smith's estate on the substantive claim, meaning none of the disputed fortune passed to her heirs after years of costs and public spectacle for both families.
The Lesson
This case is often used less as a "bad will" example and more as a cautionary tale about the gap between what someone says they intend and what their legal documents actually say. Verbal promises, no matter how sincere, generally don't hold up against a properly executed estate plan that says otherwise. If a gift or bequest matters, it needs to be in writing, current, and unambiguous - not something left for lawyers and courts to reconstruct after the fact.
Takeaway: Intentions that live only in conversation are nearly impossible to enforce. If you want someone provided for, put it in the documents — and make sure those documents are updated to match what you actually mean.