J. Howard Marshall II's widow Anna Nicole Smith won $474 million in a bankruptcy court, and after two Supreme Court cases her estate got nothing

The Texas oil businessman J. Howard Marshall II married Vickie Lynn Marshall, known as Anna Nicole Smith, on 27 June 1994, when he was 89 and she was 26. He died in Houston on 4 August 1995, aged 90. His living trust and pourover will left her nothing and made his son E. Pierce Marshall the main beneficiary. In January 1996 she filed for bankruptcy in California. Pierce filed a defamation claim there, and she counterclaimed that he had interfered with a gift his father intended for her. In 2000 the bankruptcy court awarded her more than $449 million in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages. In March 2001 a Houston probate jury upheld the trust and will. In 2002 District Judge David O. Carter awarded her $44.3 million in compensatory damages and the same amount in punitive damages. The Ninth Circuit reversed in 2004 under the probate exception. On 1 May 2006 the Supreme Court unanimously reversed that ruling in Marshall v. Marshall. Pierce died on 20 June 2006 and Smith on 8 February 2007; her estate continued with Howard K. Stern as executor. On 19 March 2010 the Ninth Circuit held that the Texas judgment controlled and directed judgment for Pierce's estate. On 23 June 2011 the Supreme Court affirmed 5 to 4 in Stern v. Marshall, holding that the bankruptcy court lacked constitutional authority to enter final judgment on her counterclaim. Chief Justice John Roberts's opinion opens with Dickens's Bleak House. On 18 August 2014 Carter denied her estate about $44 million in sanctions: "It is neither reasonable nor practical to go forward." A Texas appeals court affirmed the probate judgment, with changes, in 2015. Her estate asked Carter to reopen the case. He refused, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed on 31 January 2019. Status: the 2019 ruling is the latest decision found; Smith's estate received nothing from the Marshall fortune.