« Buy Gringo, Compadre | Main | Madonna And The Other White Meat »

May 01, 2006

BREAKING NEWS

Speaking of...the effects on the male anatomy of pesticide and...age...

Supreme Court backs Anna Nicole Smith in dispute over husband's fortune.


Justice(s) ain't BLIND, baby...

Posted by tree hugging sister at May 1, 2006 10:15 AM

Comments

I was so afraid her case would be a bust.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 1, 2006 10:42 AM

And gold diggers everywhere rejoice.

Posted by: Rob at May 1, 2006 10:43 AM

Come on, Rob. Old boy died a happy, HAPPY man. Can you put a price on that?

Posted by: tree hugging sister at May 1, 2006 10:44 AM

Interesting that Sleepy Ginsburg wrote the opinion; I thought everyone slept through the "Anna Nicole" show.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 1, 2006 10:45 AM

I guess not, ths, but it looks like some court will be able to.

Posted by: Rob at May 1, 2006 11:06 AM

The other side of the coin was, she WAS his wife/widow, never signed a pre-nup and he died without including her in any way in his will. So she has inherent spousal rights, cut-and-dry. The greedy, dumbass son should have given her $20 mil (which is chump change considering the estate) to go away and this would have been all over long ago. (Or, as Bingley says, given her $10 mil and an allowance to stick around...). But he cut her off the second Daddy was dead, forged documents, on and on ~ the a$$hole's getting everything he deserves, as far as I'm concerned.

Posted by: tree hugging sister at May 1, 2006 11:13 AM

No tears here, ths. The son is a gold digger, too. The courts are jammed to the rafters as it is. To have to settle a squabble between billionaires and millionaires is ludicrous in the extreme. I'm not a big fan of means testing normally but means testing for court costs in this case wouldn't bother me. It would finance all of the indigents for a few years.

Posted by: Rob at May 1, 2006 11:28 AM

Was that a shot from the AMA's last year, or is she perpetually stoned?

Posted by: Nightfly at May 1, 2006 11:58 AM

Anna Nichole may be a rich ditzy blonde with a humongous bust, but she's still a ditz.

Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at May 1, 2006 12:34 PM

And your point, JeffS?

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 1, 2006 01:37 PM

That he'd still hit that, but he'd feel guilty about it and commiserate with his Metrosexual friends afterwards... ;-)

Posted by: John at May 1, 2006 04:01 PM

No point, Mr. Bingley. I just wanted to comment about a woman with huge boobs, that's all.

John......around here, Metrosexuals are in the closet. You're heterosexual, you're gay, or you're dead. Metros need not apply.

Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at May 1, 2006 04:26 PM

That's not the point, THS. As much as I've considered her a guilty pleasure as long as I've known about her, this decision wasn't about the merits of the case. It was about state versus federal jurisdiction, and specifically the issue of res judicata, i.e., preclusion of claims already decided by a state court from being reopened in a federal bankruptcy proceeding.

Probate, like family law, is one of the few major areas of law that are supposed to be SOLELY in the jurisdiction of the state courts. Federal courts sitting in diversity can hear state-law torts or contracts or real property claims, for example, but there's no way to probate an estate in federal court. That's because the Constitution's provision for diversity jurisdiction allows Congress to allow the federal courts to hear "suits in law or equity" between citizens of different states. Probate and family law, in England, were at least in part the province of the ecclesiastical courts, the church courts, not of the courts of common law or the chancellor's equity courts (most states merged law and equity, but well after the COnstitution was adopted).

As a more general principle, the federal courts are supposed to treat state-court rulings on state law as binding and conclusive. A federal court simply does not have the authority to say that a state court got state law "wrong": it can certainly say state law violates federal law, but I fail to see how that's relevant here. The probate of an estate is supposed to achieve finality: if anyone can upset that by filing a petition in federal bankruptcy court, especially a federal bankruptcy court sitting in another state, then something's seriously wrong.

I'll have to read the opinion, of course, but Ginsburg for the majority isn't exactly encouraging, either.

Posted by: Dave J at May 1, 2006 10:12 PM

That DOES it, Dave!! We're through!

Posted by: tree hugging sister at May 1, 2006 10:22 PM