In most cases of elder financial abuse, we
tend to think of the widowed stepmother as
a middle-aged woman in her 50’s, or even
60’s, who wages a contentious battle with
stepchildren who are usually about the same
age.
In such instances, children from the first
marriage often view the stepmother with derision,
and as a gold-digger who married the old man
purely for his money.
Did she really love him or was she simply
preying on a vulnerable elder, knowing that
he would likely die soon?
Proving that a stepmother was a conniving
schemer can be difficult, and these lawsuits
are often adjudicated on the basis of expert
testimony and eyewitness accounts.
But then there are cases that would appear
to be open and shut.
Cases such as, for example, when a 28-year-old
former Playboy model marries an 89-year-old
petroleum tycoon.
Of course, she married him for his money.
Of course, she took advantage of his frailty
to enrich herself.
Or did she?
The oil tycoon in this case, J. Howard Marshall,
was a brilliant lawyer and businessman with
a sometimes-chaotic personal life.
He attended Yale Law School and served as
an Assistant Dean at Yale for 3 years.
Marshall then left academia to become Special
Counsel to Standard Oil in 1935, and from
there he made a fortune investing in multiple
oil-related ventures.
Marshall’s first marriage, which lasted
30 years and produced two sons, J. Howard
III and E. Pierce, ultimately ended in divorce.
He immediately married his former assistant,
but he also started dating other women as
his wife’s health gradually faded due to
Alzheimer’s Disease.
Starting in 1981, Marshall carried on a decade-long
relationship with a Houston dancer named Lady
Walker, but she died unexpectedly in 1991
due to complications from cosmetic surgery.
He was lonely and liked the company of beautiful
women, which led him to be a frequent customer
at Houston strip clubs.
In October 1991, a 24-year-old Texas girl
named Vickie Lynn Hogan was performing in
a Houston strip club where she met the then
86-year-old tycoon.
By all accounts, Marshall was immediately
smitten with Vickie who, at the time, was
already married.
He lavished expensive gifts on her for more
than two years and asked her to marry him.
A year after her divorce in 1994 became official,
and then going by the name Anna Nicole Smith,
she married Marshall.
He was 89; she was 28.
Because of the age difference, Marshall and
Smith were always considered an odd couple,
but by most accounts they were also great
friends and constant companions.
Not everyone was happy with the arrangement,
of course, above all Smith’s step-son, E.
Pierce Marshall, who was ironically 27 years
older than she was.
When she married his father, Smith stood to
inherit the bulk of his father’s then $1.6
Billion estate.
But Pierce clearly saw what was coming and
managed to take control of his father’s
will and estate.
Six months after the couple married, Howard
Marshall became severely ill and Pierce Marshall
moved to become appointed as his father’s
legal guardian.
When his father died six months later, the
step-son had not only cut Smith entirely out
of his father’s estate using revocable trusts,
but he also managed to completely disinherit
both her and his own son, neither of whom
was named in any of his seven wills or trusts.
What followed was a multi-decade litigation
slugfest in which Anna Nicole Smith and her
late husband’s grandson teamed up to fight
her late husband’s son.
In what would become an epic legal battle,
the court cases started in 1995, would wind
their way through to the Supreme Court twice,
and did not end even after Anna Nicole Smith
and Pierce Marshall were both dead.
Smith claimed that J. Howard told him she
would inherit half of his estate, with the
other half going to his grandson.
Unfortunately for both, J. Howard never managed
to put that into writing.
Court decision after court decision has gone
against her and her estate.
As late as 2011, however, it looked like Smith
might win a small pyrrhic victory when her
estate was awarded $44 million in compensatory
damages from the estate of Pierce Marshall,
but three years later a US District Court
in Orange County overturned the award.
The litigation lasted so long that it ultimately
caused the probate judge in the case, Mike
Wood, to remark: “I am tired of this case.
I’ve told you that from the beginning.
I beg you to recuse me.
I beg you to recuse me.
I don’t want to deal with you people anymore.
This is ridiculous.
This is ridiculous.
I am not going to spend a lot of time cutting
at nits and gnats for people that are fighting
over $20 billion, $10 billion that they didn’t
earn.
They didn’t create this wealth.
It was created by a third party, and they’re
just fighting over it.
They can’t agree on anything.
They can pay lots of lawyers.
They can pay lawyers until hell freezes over.
But they don’t want to agree to anything.
They just want to pay lawyers.”
After declaring, “it’s just not the way
I’m going to spend my life,” Judge Wood
finally recused himself from the case after
20+ years.
So far, no one has proven that Pierce Marshall
used undue influence with his father to keep
him from leaving half of his estate to his
wife, and no one has proven that Anna Nicole
Smith used undue influence to take advantage
of a rich, old man.
It turned out that the case of a 28-year-old
stripper marrying an 89-year-old billionaire
wasn’t open and shut after all.
So, what has happened to the now multi-billion
Marshall inheritance these decades later?
A new judge was appointed; the case continues
in Probate Court.
I’m Mike Hackard from Hackard Law.
Thanks for watching.
