The Supreme Court last year ruled that the 9th Circuit’s interpretation that the federal courts have no jurisdiction whatsoever over probate matters was overly broad, and the justices have sent the case back to the 9th Circuit on remand. Now the 9th Circuit will focus on the specific arguments of this legal dispute.
This is bad news for Dannielynn and Smith’s legal team. The remaining legal issues surrounding this litigation are fairly straightforward and uncomplicated. J. Howard Marshall was legally allowed to direct his bequest to whomever he pleased, and he chose his son Pierce. He never intended to leave any portion of his estate to Smith or her heirs. We know these things because that’s what the jury found after a six-month trial in Texas. We also know that, under the doctrine of res judicata, each of these findings must be upheld in any other courts that look at this case.
At this point, of course, the tragic center of this saga is not Smith, but Dannielynn. One fears, at worst, that this child may be being used as leverage to support the ongoing claims of Smith’s lawyers and a number of hangers-on who seek to get rich quick.
You know this is what is so sad. Dannielynn is nothing but a pawn to the lawyers and Larry and Howard.
” ... We know these things because that’s what the jury found after a six-month trial in Texas. We also know that, under the doctrine of res judicata, each of these findings must be upheld in any other courts that look at this case. ...”
After that guy wrote that, months ago, other attorneys came out and critiqued what was said. There are as many different opinions on this as there are grains of sand on the beach.
The problem was that the CA court ruling came *before* the TX ruling. There are other reasons why that won’t necessarily make it the benchmark for the case, but it’s not quite as cut-and-dried as he made it sound.