Anna Nicole Smith's family lose $44m claim from Marshall's fortune

Late Anna Nicole Smith's family has lost the 44 million dollars claim from the fortune of her late husband J Howard Marshall.

A US judge rejected the final bid of the former Playboy model's family challenging the will of her oil tycoon husband, who left his 1.6billion dollars to his son and nothing to Smith, the BBC reported.

After Marshall's death at the age of 90, Smith had filed legal papers, using her real name Vickie Lynn Marshall, where she claimed that her husband had promised to leave her more than 300 million dollars in his will.

Judge Carter said in court that time spent litigating the relationship between Smith and Howard had extended for nearly five times the length of their relationship and nearly 20 times the length of their marriage.

After Smith's death in 2007 due to an accidental drug overdose at the age of 39, the lawyers representing her seven-year-old daughter Dannielynn tried to overturn the will without success.