The Wildest Inheritance Disputes Ever

They say money can't buy happiness, but they are clearly wrong. Money can make you very happy if you use it in the right ways. While some people get rich through their successful careers, winning the lottery, or marrying someone who is already rolling in it, others might spend much of their life in close proximity to great wealth – just waiting to get their hands on it.

For those whose parents or grandparents were the ones who built up generational wealth, it often doesn't get passed on until their relative dies. Ideally, the thankful heirs would be so happy they would take what their relative left them no matter how large or small a percentage of the pot, and go on to live happy, fulfilling lives. In reality, heirs to some of the biggest fortunes in the world tend to get a bit litigious as soon as the patriarch or matriarch who had been holding the purse strings dies.

While money can definitely pay for items and experiences that will make someone happy and can ease so many of the regular life stresses normal people face, for many rich heirs, it can also lead to the destruction of family relationships and decades of court costs. Yes, decades. In some cases, much longer. And that doesn't even guarantee that at the end they will come away with any more money than they were originally left. These are the wildest inheritance disputes ever.

As Forbes explains, in 1991, Anna Nicole Smith, who was already well-known as a model, met the billionaire J. Howard Marshall II at a gentlemen's club. Three years later, the 26-year-old married the 89-year-old. One year after that, he died.

While that would seem to be ideal for a young woman with an old, rich husband, Howard hadn't actually put Smith in his will yet. That meant she and Howard's youngest son — also named Howard, and who was left nothing in the will as well – took the older son, Pierce, to court. The twists and turns were ridiculous and made headlines around the world. ABC News reported that Pierce claimed no fewer than 13 legal documents proved he was the heir, and that Smith was only with his father for the money. Smith claimed her husband promised to leave her half of everything.

The case saw contradictory decisions in a Texas state court and a California bankruptcy court. Eventually, the Supreme Court had to step in – but not to decide who got the money, just that Smith could keep fighting for the inheritance. But then, in quick succession, both Pierce and Smith died. Still, the case went on, since Smith's daughter could now theoretically be the heir to the large fortune. In 2015, Forbes reported that a decision had finally ended the legal fight ... except it hadn't because it was still going on in 2017, when the judge who'd been hearing the case from the beginning literally begged to be recused from any further litigation.

Nina Wang was at one point the richest woman in Asia, according to The Guardian, but that might be the least interesting thing about her. Nicknamed "Little Sweetie" by the public, she always wore her hair in pigtails even into her 60s, as well as a uniform of miniskirts and ankle socks. And despite all her wealth, she lived extremely frugally, even by non-billionaire standards.

Then there was the saga of her husband, Teddy Wang. The South China Morning Post reports that the wealthy businessman was kidnapped in 1990 and never seen again. However, this was actually the second time he'd been abducted; the first took place in 1983. On that occasion, he'd been released once a $33 million ransom was paid, but the second time, the $30 million Nina turned over wasn't enough to get him back. Nina and Teddy's father wound up in court fighting over his fortune, with three different wills produced. The case saw Nina jailed for forgery before finally winning her battle and inheriting her husband's whole estate.

When Nina died in 2006, her married younger lover, Tony Chan (pictured), always described in the press as a "Feng Shui master" produced a will which left him her $4 billion fortune. After a long court battle, which saw crowds of people fight to get seats to hear the strange details that emerged about their relationship, including their communications with the dead, it was ruled Nina had really left her money to charity. In 2012, Chan was sentenced to 12 years for forging the will, per BBC News.

Infamously known as "The Queen of Mean," Leona Helmsley was a self-made businesswoman long before she finally married at age 52, to a man even richer than her. She became famous for being terrible to people and very cheap, so much so that she was charged with tax evasion in 1988, according to The New Yorker. One witness at the trial claimed she'd heard Helmsley say, "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes." She ended up serving time in prison after she was convicted.

After her husband died in 1997, Helmsley got an adorable dog named Trouble to keep her company. And it was the money she left to this dog that would make sure Helmsley was infamous long after her own death in 2007. Reuters reported that she left Trouble $12 million in her will. In comparison, she left her brother, who was instructed to be Trouble's caretaker, $10 million. And two of her grandchildren received $5 million each. What is often missing from this story, though, is that fact her estate was worth an estimated $4 billion to $8 billion – the balance of which was put into a charitable trust. So $12 million for her dog was a drop in the bucket.

Two of her grandchildren had been disinherited, as the will stated, "for reasons which are known to them," and they sued. In the end, they got $3 million each, while Trouble received $2 million, per Hackard Law. Further lawsuits included the will's executors suing to receive $100 million for their services, and three animal welfare groups suing for a larger part of the charitable trust.

Fred Koch (pronounced "coke") made his fortune in the oil business in the mid-20^th century. His four sons – Frederick, Bill, Charles, and David — all had different levels of involvement in the family business, according to Mother Jones, and some fierce (and often violent) sibling rivalries. So despite the fact that Fred once instructed his sons to "be kind and generous to one another" (via CNN Money), when their patriarch died, they ignored him.

The inheritance left by their father in 1967 was, essentially, the family firm, Koch Industries. Technically, Frederick had been cut out of his father's will, but still owned a portion of the company through a trust. Now worth over $100 billion, Koch Industries was a huge conglomerate even back then. So the boys started fighting to control it, sometimes literally, like in 1980, when business disagreements led to what The New York Times described as "a boardroom brawl." Three years later, Charles and David bought Bill and Frederick out of the company completely for $700 million. A tidy sum, to be sure, but after thinking it over, Bill and Frederick decided it wasn't fair compensation.

The brothers spent the next 18 years in court, and the two factions did not speak to each other, even at their mother's 1991 funeral service. Their mother, in fact, had cut Bill and Frederick out of her own will, according to The New York Times. Accusations flew, including that Charles had tried to blackmail Frederick. The fight ended in 1998, with Bill and Frederick losing their claim to more money.

John Seward Johnson I, of the Johnson & Johnson company fame, was seemingly happily married to his wife Essie for over three decades – until he set eyes on a new employee in one of his homes, the 30-year-old Polish immigrant Basia Piasecka (pictured), per "Undue Influence: The Epic Battle for the Johnson and Johnson Fortune." And Seward was not content to make Basia his mistress: He divorced Essie and married Basia. Despite this scandalous beginning and the more than 40-year age difference, the couple were together until Seward's death 12 years later, in 1983.

After Seward died, his six children discovered he'd left almost all of his $500 estate to Basia, The New York Times reported. They took their stepmother to court, and were joined by the non-profit Harbor Branch Foundation, which also believed it was entitled to a cut of the late Seward's fortune, according to UPI. The Johnson children claimed that by the end their father was not all there mentally, and that the only reason he left everything to Basia was because she took advantage of his age and mental state, to the point of "terrorizing" him. Basia, on the other hand, claimed the marriage was happy and her stepchildren didn't care about anything but getting their hands on the money.

In the end, the case went to trial in 1986, with Basia saying she would never settle. However, right before the 4-month trial went to the jury, she changed her mind, and walked away with over $300 million, dividing the rest between the children and the charity.