Arthur K. Marshall; L.A. Judge Presided Over Actor Lee Marvin’s Palimony Trial

Arthur K. Marshall, the retired Los Angeles County Superior Court judge who presided over the palimony trial of actor Lee Marvin, has died. He was 88.

Marshall died Sunday night at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, where he had been receiving treatment for cancer and other illnesses for several weeks, said his friend, retired Judge Lester Olson.

In more than a quarter of a century on the trial court bench, Marshall handled a variety of major cases, and earned particular praise for his work in probate law. The Los Angeles County Bar Assn.’s estate planning, trust and probate section named its annual award for him and granted him the first one in 1981. Marshall wrote the book on “California Probate Procedure” in 1961 and updated it through 1994, and presided over distribution of the vast estates of such philanthropists as Ben Weingart.

But Marshall is best remembered as the judge who in April 1979 ordered Lee Marvin to pay his former live-in lover Michelle Triola Marvin (she legally adopted the last name) $104,000 for “rehabilitation.” Even before the Court of Appeal eventually tossed aside that ruling, the late actor was happy with the modest loss. His estranged lover had sought half of Marvin’s $3.6-million income during the six years they lived together.

The “Marvin decision” legalizing palimony in California had been made three years earlier by the state Supreme Court, setting a precedent in contract law that other states soon emulated. Previously, any contractual sharing of property and income by unmarried cohabitants had been considered illegally “meretricious,” or sex-for-hire akin to prostitution. The Marvin ruling established that such couples might be required to split property if a contract had been implied.

To Marshall fell the messy clean-up of the case--the actual trial to determine whether Michelle Marvin could collect under the legal precedent she and her attorney, Marvin M. Mitchelson, had established.

Marshall said she did not meet the criterion for a 50-50 split. He found, after an acrimonious and highly publicized 11-week nonjury trial, that Michelle and Lee had never made any verbal agreement to share household duties and income. No agreement, no millions.

But the judge awarded her the $104,000 by computing $1,000 a week for two years based on her highest salary as a sometime singer, “so that she may have the economic means to re-educate herself and learn new employable skills.”

The relative insignificance of his role after the Supreme Court decision was clear to Marshall, but lost on the public and the news media. Once, when the judge was nearly mowed down in the courthouse hallway by television camera crews chasing Michelle Marvin, he arched his expressive eyebrows and asked with amazement, “What makes this case so interesting?”

Marshall earned praise for gentlemanly and deft handling of the raucous Marvin court battle as well as other scandalous issues that came before him, including the obscenity trial involving the early 1970s movie “Deep Throat.”

The scholarly Marshall, who also wrote textbooks on taxation, pretrial procedures and probate law, had a greater passion for classical music than off-color motion pictures. But whatever the case, he developed a reputation for impartiality, impeccable courtroom manners and knowledge of the law.

Long after he left the bench, those traits kept him in demand as a private jurist, or “rent-a-judge,” paid by attorneys to handle complicated business disputes. He also arbitrated health care plan cases and served on special panels, such as the five-member board named by then-Gov. George Deukmejian in 1985 to deal with a contract dispute that threatened to halt Southern California Rapid Transit District buses.

Born in Baltimore, Marshall earned a bachelor’s degree from City University of New York, a law degree from St. John’s University, and, after coming to California in the Army Judge Advocate Corps during World War II, a master’s degree in law at USC.

Marshall worked as a counsel for the Veterans Administration, the California Board of Equalization and the state controller’s inheritance tax section. In 1953, he was appointed a commissioner of Los Angeles County Superior Court.

He was named to the Los Angeles Municipal Court in 1962 and elevated to the Superior Court as a judge in 1963. He retired in 1980.

Marshall taught law courses at USC and UCLA and was a chancellor and founding president of the International Academy of Estate and Trust Law.

Survivors include his wife, Mary Jane; twin sons, Christopher and John; and one grandchild.

A memorial service is scheduled for 3 p.m. Monday at Westwood United Methodist Church, 10497 Wilshire Blvd.

The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the St. John’s Health Center Foundation, 1328 22nd St., Santa Monica, CA 90404.