I would guess that in your personal situation there was at least a scintilla of a theory on which the challenger contested the will.
I do understand the idea of eliminating the nuisance, but it depends how steadfast the estate is. The Anna Nicole Smith case is a great example. The estate refused to play ball and it has dragged on for years without her or her estate yet seeing a dime - and Anna Nicole was in a much better position than Paris because she was a spouse.
Most states have rules providing that any attorney and client who bring a frivolous case can have sanctions awarded against them. These can be financial sanctions or, in the case of the attorney, bar sanctions. Paris would have nothing relevant to add to the proceeding. She may not even be permitted to testity. She would be claiming undue influence or lack of mental capacity and would try to support her claim through the testimony of medical professionals. I obviously don't know Barron Hilton, but I would suspect that any claim that he doesn't possess testamentary capacity would be laughable. Without any basis whatsoever for the will contest, it could be deemed frivolous. Judges don't often award sanctions, but I was just involved in a case where the judge did just that against the opponent.
Frivolous cases subvert the legal system and unnecessarily tie up limited judicial resources. In a high profile case such as this would be, I could see a judge awarding sanctions to publicly send the message that such nonsense will not be tolerated. Of course, it may be a Judge Ito or that idiot judge in the Anna Nicole case sitting on the bench so one never knows for sure what would happen.
We had the old wills (all of which disinherited her) and the testimony of physicians who had known the deceased for years and she had a well-credentialed physician lined up and an unlimited amount of chutzpah,greed and venom.All this caused us to cave to the tune of a relatively small sum just so that we could be rid of her.And we have no doubt that that was *completely* in keeping with her strategy.
I wonder if,in the end,cases like this are,particularly with enormous estates,often decided by which side is,as you put it,more "steadfast".