Anna Nicole Smith wins US ruling

Anna Nicole Smith arrives with her lawyer for her hearing at the Supreme Court in Washington. File picture / Reuters

WASHINGTON - Former Playmate of the Year Anna Nicole Smith won a unanimous US Supreme Court ruling today and gets a new chance to collect millions of dollars she says her late Texas oil tycoon husband promised her.

The justices overturned a US appeals court ruling that the former topless dancer was entitled to nothing because federal courts lacked jurisdiction to hear claims that are also involved in state probate hearings.

Smith was 26 when she married oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall, then 89, in 1994. They met three years earlier when she was dancing in a Houston bar.

Marshall was one of the wealthiest men in Texas, worth more than an estimated $1.6 billion ($2.52 billion). His death after 14 months of marriage triggered a legal battle between his son, E. Pierce Marshall and Smith, who also had a reality show.

"This case concerns the claims of petitioner Vickie Lynn Marshall, also known as Anna Nicole Smith, to share in the large fortune of her deceased husband," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in announcing the ruling from the bench.

Smith said that her husband promised her half of his estate. The son said the more than $6 million in gifts she received in 1994 was all his father wanted her to get.

In Texas, a state probate court ruled that E. Pierce Marshall was entitled to his father's estate.

But in California, a federal bankruptcy judge ruled for Smith and awarded her $474 million because of her claims the son had interfered with the inheritance she was supposed to receive.

A federal district court judge then cut Smith's award to $88 million. But the appeals court ruled she was entitled to nothing because federal courts lack jurisdiction in probate disputes.

Ginsburg concluded in the 18-page opinion that the appeals court was wrong and that the district court properly asserted jurisdiction over Smith's claims against the son.

"Vickie Marshall's claim ... qualifies for adjudication in federal court," Ginsburg said from the bench. She said the appeals court incorrectly ruled that the Texas probate court had exclusive jurisdiction to resolve the dispute.

The Supreme Court's ruling only addressed whether federal courts can decide Smith's claims, and not the merits of her arguments that she should get the money.

E. Pierce Marshall said the ruling involved a "technical issue" and does not validate Smith's claims. He said his lawyers would ask the appeals court to overturn on various grounds the district court's ruling in Smith's favour.

"I will continue to fight to clear my name in California federal court. That is a promise that Vickie and her lawyers can take to the bank," he said in a statement issued in Texas. "I will continue to fight to uphold my father's estate plan and clear my name."

- REUTERS