Fagundes on Anna Nicole’s Constitutional Estates Law Legacy

Dave Fagundes, Emory University School of Law, is publishing Anna Nicole’s Constitutional Estates Law Legacy as an EMory Legal Studies Research Paper. Here is the abstract.

Anna Nicole Smith emerged as a supermodel and cultural icon in the early 1990s, and generated scandalous headlines when she married wealthy octogenarian J. Howard Marshall II in 1994. Following his death the very next year, Anna Nicole descended into drug addiction and her star faded, ultimately leading to her untimely death in 2007. Her final years were well documented, reflected in both regular tabloid features as well as a reality TV show. Less familiar, though, are the details of the estates litigation she pursued beginning soon after J. Howard Marshall’s death and continuing past even Anna Nicole’s demise, concluding nearly two decades later and only after two trips to the U.S. Supreme Court. This Essay briefly traces the course of that litigation, focusing on the two Supreme Court cases–Marshall v. Marshall (2005) and Stern v. Marshall (2011)–that capped what Chief Justice Marshall called “a Bleak House for our times.” In so doing, it shows that while Anna Nicole may not have left the kind of cultural impact that she had hoped, her ultimately unsuccessful attempt to claim a share of her spouse’s wealth left a significant legacy in a most unexpected setting–constitutional estates law.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.