Washington, D.C.
The Supreme Court ruled this week that former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith could continue to press her claim for a share of the $1.6 billion estate left by her late husband, oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II. Marshall was 89 and Smith 26 when they married, in 1994. Marshall died the following year, leaving a will that bequeathed his entire estate to his younger son, E. Pierce Marshall. Smith contends that the elder Marshall had promised her half of his estate if she would marry him. The Supreme Court decision sends the dispute back to federal district court, rather than state probate court. The younger Marshall vowed to “fight to uphold my father’s estate plan”—a promise, he said, that Smith “can take to the bank.”
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