Anna Nicole Smith Loses Estate Battle, Millions
Although the famous Playboy Playmate and reality television star has been dead for seven years, Anna Nicole Smith has carried on an estate battle with her late husband. The Anna Nicole Smith estate lost a final bid to obtain about $44 million from J. Howard Marshall’s estate, which was left entirely to his son despite the tycoon’s marriage to Anna Nicole Smith.
The forty-four million would have gone to Anna Nicole Smith’s daughter, Dannielynn Birkhead. The Orange County Judge rejected Anna Nicole’s lawyers’ last ditch pitch to win sanctions claiming that the Marshall family had used delay tactics and obfuscations to drag out the ordeal in hopes of Smith’s financial situation ending her lawsuit. Although this judge had, according to Forbes, seemed sympathetic to that approach, calling the Marshall lawyers’ tactics “pervasive” and “egregious,” he eventually sided with them over the Anna Nicole Smith estate’s arguments. He specifically cited a lack of clear evidence from the Anna Nicole Smith side.
The former Playmate’s daughter, Dannielynn Birkhead, is now seven years old and has appeared on television recently as she attempts to follow in her mother’s footsteps towards a career in modeling and entertainment, the Inquisitr reported. The child’s father, Larry, was accompanying her and was a former beau of Anna Nicole Smith. Still unmarried, the bachelor and his daughter were in an episode of Celebrity Wife Swap.
The Anna Nicole Smith estate claim has been ongoing for about two decades, ever since the death of Marshall just a year or so after the couple married. Marshall, who was 89 at the time of their marriage, was already in failing health when Anna Nicole Smith, then 26, tied the knot with him. Smith, under her real name of Vickie Lynn Marshall, sued when her dead husband’s will gave everything to his only son. She originally asked for $300 million claiming that her late husband was unfit to have made a will when he did. Over the next 20 years, the case moved through various courts on various arguments, NBC News reports, even ending up in the U.S. Supreme Court where Anna Nicole Smith’s claim was ultimately denied.
That is when the Anna Nicole Smith estate decided to sue for sanctions, claiming wrongdoing by the Marshall estate lawyers.
The Anna Nicole Smith estate’s final claim lost means that the legacy of the Playboy model’s attempts to gain her late husband’s money is dead. Anna Nicole’s daughter, Dannielynne, however, still appears to have a bright future despite not gaining the tens of millions this final attempt by Smith lawyers could have brought.
