- WASHINGTON: The Supreme Court has ruled against the estate of Anna Nicole Smith in its quest to capture some of the $1.6 billion estate left behind by her late Texas billionaire husband.
The high court on Thursday ruled that a bankruptcy court’s decision to give the now-deceased Playmate $475 million from the estate of oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall was decided incorrectly. Smith and Marshall were wed in 1994, and he died the next year. His will left his estate to his son, E. Pierce Marshall, and nothing to Smith.
A California bankruptcy court awarded Smith part of the estate, but the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeal said that a bankruptcy court could not make a decision on an issue outside of bankruptcy law.