Probate and Trust Litigation Anna Nicole Smith

On Thursday November 17 Primetime Live the ABC news show discussed the Anna Nicole Smith Probate and Trust Litigation case, her relationship with her husband who was 63 years older than her (89 and 26) and showed some of the video from the court cases that have spanned from Texas to California bankruptcy court, probate court and federal court. Two of the aspects of the show that were particularly of interest were first that that J. Howard Marshall was not just an oilman who happened to get lucky and make billions of dollars but that he had been an attorney and not merely an attorney but a trusts and estates attorney as well as a professor. In fact he taught trusts and estates at Yale law school. With that being mentioned it is reasonable to assume that if he wanted to provide for her his documents would have done so. Although that further raises the question of the conflict in his failing to follow up with a post nuptial agreement or having done a prenuptial before they were married in order to avoid her right to an elective share and community property from the time they were married which she presumably has the right to in Texas. In Florida there is no community property but a surviving spouse would be entitled to an elective share which is basically 30% of the overall estate whether or not included in probate. During his lifetime he gave her gifts of around $6-$7 million dollars and they were married for just 14 months. His will and trust which Anna has challenged with a decade of litigation in probate court essentially left the same thing which she heard him intend to leave at the time he prepared the home video. The Supreme Court will next be deciding whether a federal judge has jurisdiction in a probate matter. The Supreme Court case will be Vickie Lynn Marshall (Anna Nicole's formal legal name) v. E. Pierce Marshall, (J. Howard Marshall's son who is the personal representative and trustee. The case number is 04-1544.