When The North Face and Esprit co-founder Douglas Tompkins died in a kayaking accident in Chile in December 2015, he left behind a fortune—but none of it to his two adult daughters.

Philosophically, Tompkins opposed inherited wealth. The billionaire wanted his money to fund environmental conservation efforts in South America.

But six months after his death, his daughter Summer Tompkins Walker quietly filed a “forced heirship” suit in Los Angeles Superior Court seeking a share of her father's assets—litigation that has not previously been reported.

Represented by White & Case, she argues that Chilean law should apply to the trust, and that she is entitled to inherit money. As is, the terms of his trust leave her and her sister nothing but the artwork and Amish quilts that their step-mother doesn't want, plus personal possessions like jewelry, clothes and furniture.

So far, she has come up short. In September, Judge Lesley Green granted summary judgment in favor of Tompkins' widow and trustee, Kristine McDivitt Tompkins, and co-trustee, Debra Ryker, represented jointly by Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton.

The judge rejected Summer Tompkins' argument that Chilean law should apply because her father left California in 1994 and never intended to return, adopting Puerto Varas, Chile as his new home.

An avid outdoorsman, Douglas Tompkins co-founded The North Face in 1966, opening a small shop in San Francisco. He went on to launch the clothing company Esprit with his first wife.

By 1990, he'd had enough of the corporate world. He and his second wife, Kris—who had been CEO of outdoor clothing company Patagonia—moved to South America.

In a 2014 profile, The Atlantic wrote, “Few in neighboring towns were quick to trust their eccentric new neighbor—the organic farmer, the WASPy backpacker, the amateur architect, the billionaire entrepreneur, the high-school dropout, the former ski racer, the grizzled mountaineer, the bold whitewater kayaker, the daring bush pilot, the audacious land-grabber, the radical environmentalist, the would-be savior of the Patagonian wilds—Douglas Tompkins. “

The couple bought more than 2 million acres of pristine land in South America, protecting more land than any other individuals in history, according to The Atlantic.

Douglas Tompkins died of hypothermia when his kayak capsized in the frigid waters of General Carrera Lake in the Patagonia region of Chile. He was 72.

He had established a trust, last amended in 2012, that left virtually all his assets to his wife, who has continued their mission of land conservation.

In her suit filed in June 2016, Summer Tompkins attempted to invoke Chile's “forced heirship” statute. Her sister did not join in the complaint. The law requires people to dispose of their estates in specific percentages to specific family members.

“The forced heirship law of the Decedent's South American domicile at the time of his death requires that Petitioner inherit a larger share of the assets of the Trust than is allocated to her under the terms of the 2012 Amendment,” wrote her lawyers from White & Case.

Michael Kavoukjian, who chairs the global private clients group at White & Case, did not respond to a request for comment.

The Sheppard Mullin team representing the trust hit back hard, noting that Summer did not argue her father was of unsound mind or anyone unduly influenced him.

“Summer accepts, as she must, that the trust reflects exactly what Doug intended,” wrote Sheppard Mullin partner Adam Streisand. “Summer would deliberately imperil her father's philanthropy to expand her existing, substantial personal wealth by attempting to invoke laws of countries to which she has no connection whatsoever.”

The forced heirship provision could also allow her to clawback her father's gifts of land that created five national parks in Chile and Argentina, with three more in the works.

The Sheppard Mullin lawyers also stressed that Summer is already independently wealthy from her mother's share of Esprit, and “married into an enormously wealthy San Francisco family.”

“Application of forced heirship laws would only serve to enrich the already rich and dishonor Doug's values and intent,” Streisand wrote. “Doug could never have imagined the cruel irony that Summer would seek to exploit his death and the laws of countries in which Doug had devoted his charity, countries Summer had no interest in during Doug's life, to the detriment of those countries.”

The trust's choice-of-law provision plainly states that California law applies to the dissolution of the estate. Indeed, the trust was created in the state, its primary bank and investment accounts are there, and the trust has been administered in California since 1994. Summer can't get around that unless she could show application of California law is somehow contrary to public policy—which it is not, Streisand argued.

The judge agreed.

“Summer largely presents irrelevant arguments concerning Douglas' domicile and the application of Chilean law to the property,” Green wrote in granting summary judgement to the trust in an order entered on Sept. 19. “These issues are not material to the instant petition or to the law governing the trust.”

When The North Face and Esprit co-founder Douglas Tompkins died in a kayaking accident in Chile in December 2015, he left behind a fortune—but none of it to his two adult daughters.

Philosophically, Tompkins opposed inherited wealth. The billionaire wanted his money to fund environmental conservation efforts in South America.