US Supreme Court hears Anna Nicole Smith appeal

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday took up an appeal from the heirs of the late model Anna Nicole Smith over the fortune of the 89-year-old billionaire she married in the 1990s before his death.

The case dates back to the death of the Texas oil tycoon Howard Marshall in 1995, when Ms Smith, then 27, discovered that he had left his entire fortune to his son Pierce, who has also since died.

Up until her own death in February 2007, Ms Smith had claimed during years of legal wrangling that the elder Marshall had promised her some $300 million before his death.

The case has made its way through courts in several states, and the Supreme Court itself ruled in favour of Ms Smith in 2006.

But the legal battle is far from over, with heirs on both sides fighting over different aspects of the case.

The most recent decision – which the Supreme Court was considering on Tuesday – by an appeals court in California in March 2010, removed Ms Smith’s heirs from the Marshall fortune, estimated at $1.6 billion.

It was expected to issue its final ruling by the end of June.

A 2007 autopsy found that Ms Smith’s death – a worldwide tabloid sensation at the time – was due to a lethal cocktail of anti-anxiety medication, methadone, antibiotics and other prescription drugs. It came just months after her son, 20-year-old Daniel, died from an overdose in the Bahamas in September 2006.

Born Vickie Lynn Hogan, Ms Smith married Howard Marshall in 1994 after meeting him at a strip club where she was working. She was 26 at the time and he was 89.