Anna Nicole's Family Legal Nightmares Only Beginning

While the medical examiner begins the grim task of trying to determine Anna Nicole Smith's cause of death, the legal issues she left behind are considerable. There's the immediate concern of determining the father of her 5-month old daughter, Dannielynn. An emergency paternity hearing is being held in California today to rule on that matter. Two men have come forward claiming to be the father:

Experts say the custody decision could determine the child’s inheritance.

Attorney Howard K. Stern, Smith’s most recent companion, is listed on Dannielynn’s birth certificate as her father. If it is determined he is the biological father and if he was legally married to Smith — which has yet to be established — Stern, not Dannielynn, would likely inherit Smith’s estate, experts say.

Smith’s former boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, says he is the girl’s father.

If Smith and the biological father were not married and Smith left no will, the father and child likely would split her assets, according to Christopher Cline, an estate planning lawyer with the firm of Holland and Knight.

“It’s a really large legal quagmire,” said Cline, who enumerated some of the many questions hanging in the balance.

“I’ve never seen a case with more moving parts,” he said, comparing the legal morass in its complexity with unraveling the estate of billionaire Howard Hughes — albeit with less money involved.

Then, there's the ongoing battle over the estate of her late husband, who passed away in 2000 and a pending class action on the TrimSpa weight loss product.

Smith’s battle over her late husband J. Howard Marshall II’s oil fortune with the family of his son grinds on in Texas. And there is a pending class action suit seeking unspecified damages against Smith and TrimSpa Inc., alleging the company’s marketing of a weight-loss pill with Smith as spokeswoman was false and misleading.

The inheritance stands to be up to $1.6 billion. In sum, Smith left behind a legal nightmare for her family and estate to figure out.

The Daily News calls this the vulture circling. In a way, they're right - Smith isn't even buried yet and already people are looking towards the possibility of getting their hands on the estate. Yet, at the same time, someone is Dannielynn's father and should be there to take care of her. The paternity action will bring closure to that action.

For her family, friends, and followers, all are trying to cope with a difficult period and trying to find out why and how she died. Already, there are multiple theories, including murder that were quickly dismissed by other media reports, drug overdoses, and other assorted rumors. Her mother believes that drugs were involved. That there are conflicting stories over who found her and what kind of care she received moments after being discovered, only makes the situation all the more tragic.

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