PAS7: Marshall v Marshall

In my senior year of high school, I was assigned to write a 7-10 page essay on a supreme court case that I thought was of importance for my Advanced Placement US History class. Of course being my nerdy self, I absolutely refused to use one of the famous cases given to us on a list by our teacher. So, after class I went up to my teacher, Mrs. Farwell (someone who I consider a mentor), and asked if I could write my essay on Marshall v Marshall (2006). She looked at me and said, “okay well what’s it about, I’m not familiar with it?”

I informed her that it was a case that originated as an inheritance dispute between Anna Nicole Smith and her step son, E. Pierce Marshall. Of course, she was mistified as to what the significance of this case was to me personally – and to be quite frank, when I chose the case I did it because I found it interesting that a celebrity case made it all the way to Supreme Court of the United States – although after much research and thought this case has come to mean something to me and inspires me to pursue law further (but I’ll get to that later).

So I Immediately began to read up on the history behind this monumental case. To summarize, Anna Nicole Smith (whose real name was Vicki Lynn Marshall) married an 90 year old billionaire Howard Marshall – who died a year after they were married. Legally his son inherited much of his fortune and Anna Nicole was left with nothing – that’s where things get interesting. When taken to Texas probate court, Anna Nicole Smith simultaneously filed for bankruptcy in California. Pierce responded to this by filing for proof of her bankruptcy claim and claiming she had defamed him – to which she counter sued on the grounds of tortious interference.

In addition, at this time she was claiming that her step son had engaged in tortious interference with a gift (her share of her late husbands estate) – which essentially means that Pierce had engaged in legal and immoral wrongdoing to exclude her from the will.

Further Bankruptcy Court ruled in favor of Smith awarding her 475 million dollars and a further 25 in punitive damages. They then dismissed Pierce’s motion to dismiss the ruling on the grounds of lack of subject matter (asserting that only Texas Probate Court could rule on these matters) which was struck down by the Bankruptcy Court. Texas Probate Court was then quickly wrapped up, due to Smith’s belief that her Bankruptcy settlement was enough to protect her interests.

However, Pierce then challenged her in The Federal District Court for the Central District of California, who initially vacated the Bankruptcy Court’s award of almost 500 million dollars, but upon further review ruled in favor of Anna Nicole Smith, awarding her 88 million dollars in punitive damages upon her tort claims. Upon appeal this was challenged by Pierce and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that only Texas Probate Court could decide these matters.

Finally this case was taken to the Supreme Court – who ruled unanimously in Anna Nicole Smith’s favor – finding that District Courts had concurrent jurisdiction over tort claims! However that wasn’t the end of this battle – it was taken to the Supreme Court again in Stern v Marshall (2011) who ruled 5 to 4 that the Bankruptcy Court did not have the original jurisdiction to handle tort claims – reversing the award received by Anna Nicole Smith’s estate.

Now, we get to the importance of this case to me – I love how anyone can pursue justice and how no one decision in the American Judicial system is binding. If you don’t find your justice or your truth, you can keep fighting. I commend Anna Nicole Smith for fighting to the end against a corrupt and jealous man who tried to take everything away from her and find it heart breaking that despite the court’s finding him to have engaged in wrongdoing that because of their jurisdiction the award was ultimately reversed. One of my goals as an attorney is to pursue justice for people who’ve been the victims of wrongdoing, just like Ms. Smith; who took on a very powerful man and accused him of corruption when no one else would.

The most important takeaway from this case is that the law gives everyone an equal voice, an equal chance to be heard and thus a level playing field.

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