The glossy auction catalogs were printed. Press releases were distributed. And last week, reporters toured Christie's galleries with 329 lots of James Brown memorabilia—including "sex" jumpsuits, platform shoes, and a baby grand piano.

The auction, originally scheduled for Thursday, was expected to bring in roughly $1 million in sales.

But a week before the event was to take place, the South Carolina Court of Appeals, which was reviewing the case, had not decided who had legal authority over the property to be auctioned off.

Today, the court ruled that the show may go on.

The potential delay of the auction is only the latest in the ongoing saga among those left behind by the Godfather of Soul. Within weeks of his death on Christmas Day 2006, Brown's heirs, would-be beneficiaries, and former business partners were battling in court over the estate and trust he established.

The problem wasn't that Brown didn't leave a will. The will he signed in 2000 named six children as recipients of his personal and household effects. The rest Brown left to two trusts established to fund education for his descendants and for underprivileged children. But since then, four additional individuals have claimed that DNA tests prove they are Brown's descendants, and the mother of one says she's Brown's lawful wife.

The dispute among his would-be heirs led the district court in Aiken, South Carolina, to appoint two attorneys—Adele Pope and Robert Buchanan—as overseers of Brown's affairs in November. Pope argued that an auction would help the cash-poor estate and trust (oddly, for one of the highest-earning dead celebrities).

The auction proceeds could offset mounting attorney bills, security for Brown's 60-plus-acre home, and defense against roughly $35 million in legal claims filed against the estate. Pope and Buchanan contracted with Christie's to sell a rainbow assortment of jumpsuits (estimated at $5,000 to $7,000 each), a bag of rollers and hair-care sprays ($200 to $300), and a note Brown scrawled on "Delta In-flight Service stationery" ($300 to $500) among other items, to pay some of these expenses.

At the very least, perhaps they could raise enough to pay the remaining $18,000 balance on his funeral bill.