Justice served?
Ex-Playmate Anna Nicole's Fortune Reversed
06:05 PM EST December 30, 2004
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES
A federal appeals court Thursday threw out a judge's ruling that awarded $88.5 million to former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith from the estate of her late husband, an oil tycoon who died at age 90 just over a year after they wed.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Texas probate court's decision that the oilman's son was his sole heir should stand. The appeals court said the federal judge in California who ruled in Smith's favor in 2002 should never have even heard the case.
The decision comes after years of wrangling in three courts over the fortune of J. Howard Marshall II.
Smith met him in 1991 when she was working as a stripper. The couple married three years later when she was 26 and he was 89.
"After nine years of litigation, I'm very pleased by the judgment issued by the 9th Circuit upholding my father's wishes regarding disposition of his assets," E. Pierce Marshall said in a statement.
A call to Smith's attorney was not immediately returned.
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