Ms. Smith Goes to Washington

Anna Nicole Smith, the famously dumb, self-described "blond bombshell" who was the 1993 Playmate of the Year in Playboy magazine, has been fighting her late husband’s son for what she claims is her rightful inheritance. And in a move that has startled many, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments on why Smith feels she should prevail in her claim against her husband’s estate. All eyes interested in gossipy entertainment stories will be focused on this sexy case as it develops early next year.

Smith, whose real name is Vickie Lynn Marshall, raised eyebrows and elicited snickers when she married oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994 when he was 89 and she was 26. Photographs of the pair at the time showed her chastely kissing her wheelchair-bound new hubby, who was the richest man in Texas, and television pundits had a fine time mocking her obvious gold-digging motives. By most accounts she had other boyfriends during her one-year marriage to the billionaire Marshall, and they never lived together. But within weeks after his death in August 1995, Smith filed a claim against Marshall’s son, E. Pierce Marshall, for half of his father’s estate, valued at $1.6 billion. J. Howard’s employees say that he was crazy about Anna Nicole, but he wasn’t crazy enough to include her in his trust and will, which he updated just a few weeks after their marriage.

Smith staunchly claimed that her adoring husband had verbally promised her half of his estate if she married him. But although she had received more than $6 million in gifts from her late husband during their marriage, she was not included in his will. In September 2000, a bankruptcy judge in Los Angeles for some unknown reason believed Smith’s story and awarded her over $450 million. Pierce appealed the shocking decision, and the following year a judge in Houston threw out the award and ordered Smith to pay over $1 million in expenses to Pierce’s legal team for their efforts. But Smith appealed that decision, and in 2002 she was awarded about $89 million. Another appeal from Pierce followed, resulting in Smith’s award being thrown out again last December, when the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Smith is not one of J. Howard Marshall’s heirs and therefore is not entitled to any of his estate.

Despite the staggering absurdity of Anna Nicole’s case, the Supreme Court made the ludicrous decision last week to hear the case, picking the case to hear out of almost 2,000 appeals being considered. According to Smith’s lawyer, Howard K. Stern, "She's very excited. She will be attending arguments, there's no question about that." But there is no word on whether she'll understand them or not, since the court will probably use words longer than one syllable. Although the court claims that its decision to hear the case is based on a relatively mundane technical issue—deciding when federal courts may be solicited to hear claims involved in state probate proceedings—the facts surrounding this particular case have made skeptics wonder just what is on the high court’s mind. Surely there have been other appeals set before them asking for federal court intervention in state probate disputes, so why would they pick this particular one to hear arguments about?

The Supreme Court convenes next week for its nine-month term, and there will be two new justices sitting on the bench by the time Anna Nicole Smith's case begins. Maybe they just think they’ll all need a good laugh by then, and that's why they're going to hear it. For E. Pierce Marshall, however, chuckles and snickers are a poor substitute for justice. Hopefully the nation’s highest court will put this matter to rest and allow him to claim his inheritance as the sole heir to his father’s fortune.