Marshall v. Marshall
| Marshall v. Marshall | |
|---|---|
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| Argued February 28, 2006 Decided May 1, 2006 |
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| Full case name | Vickie Lynn Marshall v. E. Pierce Marshall |
| Docket nos. | 04-1544 |
| Citations | 547 U.S. 293 (more)
2006 U.S. LEXIS 3456
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| Prior history | Marshall v. Marshall (In re Marshall) 253 B.R. 550 (Bankr. C.D. Cal. 2001); 257 B.R. 35 (Bankr. C.D. Cal. 2001); affirmed in part, vacated and remanded, 264 B.R. 609 (C.D. Cal. 2000); 271 B.R. 858 (C.D. Cal. 2001); 273 B.R. 822 (Bankr. C.D. Cal 2002); 275 B.R. 5 (C.D. Cal. 2002); vacated and remanded, 392 F. 3d 1118 (9th Cir. 2004); cert. granted, 126 S. Ct. 35 (2005) |
| Subsequent history | Stern v. Marshall 564 U.S. __ (2011) |
| Holding | |
| Jurisdiction was properly asserted by a Federal District Court over a widow debtor's counterclaim for tortious interference with a gift, because the judicially crafted "probate exception" to Federal court jurisdiction did not apply. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded. | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Ginsburg, joined by Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Breyer, Alito |
| Concurrence | Stevens |
| Laws applied | |
| 28 U.S.C. § 1331, 28 U.S.C. § 1334 | |
Marshall v. Marshall, 547 U.S. 293 (2006) is a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that a federal district court had equal or concurrent jurisdiction with state probate (Will) courts over tort claims under state common law. The case drew an unusual amount of interest because the petitioner was Playboy Playmate and celebrity Anna Nicole Smith (whose legal name was Vickie Lynn Marshall). Smith won the case, but unsolved issues regarding her inheritance eventually led to another Supreme Court case, Stern v. Marshall. She died long before that case was decided.
Twelve years prior to his marriage to Smith, J. Howard Marshall II had set up a trust which owned all of his assets and would pass them to various charities and his son E. Pierce Marshall after his death. Smith had claimed that it was J. Howard's intention after marriage to set up a separate trust for her benefit, which would essentially leave her half the appreciation of the assets of the trust during the period of the marriage, but that his son Pierce had interfered with the formation of this separate trust. J. Howard Marshall neither set up a trust in Smith's favor, nor changed the terms of his will to provide for her after his death. However, he did make his existing trust irrevocable soon after his marriage to Smith. As a result, Smith was excluded from J. Howard's estate. She sued in Texas Probate Court for a share of the estate on several grounds, and her litigation was actively opposed by Marshall's son Pierce. The primary ground for the son's opposition was that his father had an extensive estate plan executed over many decades which expressed his clear wishes. Pierce also believed his father had already been quite generous to Smith during the marriage, providing Smith with both expensive gifts and monetary resources.
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