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Author's letter is focal point in ‘The Help' lawsuit

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JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) - A handwritten letter from author Kathryn Stockett has become the focal point of a lawsuit over her bestselling novel “The Help,” which has been made into a box office hit.

A housekeeper who works for Ms. Stockett's brother claims her likeness was used in the book without permission. “The Help” is based on relationships between White families in Mississippi and the Black women who worked for them in the 1960s. The movie adaptation of “The Help” took the No. 1 spot in theaters its opening weekend with $20.5 million.

Hinds County, Mississippi, Circuit Court Judge Tomie Green dismissed Ablene Cooper's lawsuit.

Ms. Green said the statute of limitations elapsed between the time that Ms. Stockett gave Ms. Cooper a copy of the book in January 2009 and the lawsuit's filing in February of this year.

Ms. Cooper's lawyer, Edward Sanders, has filed a motion to have the lawsuit reinstated. The motion argues that the clock should not have started ticking on the statute of limitations until Ms. Cooper read the book in the summer of 2010.

Atty. Sanders argued that Ms. Cooper didn't read it sooner because Ms. Stockett said in the letter that, despite the similarity in names, the character wasn't based on Ms. Cooper.

In a response filed with the court Aug. 22, Ms. Stockett's lawyers said the letter accompanied a copy of the book and Ms. Cooper waited too long to sue under the one-year statute of limitations.

“The note makes clear that Ms. Stockett told Mrs. Cooper that a character in the novel was named ‘Aibileen.' With note and novel in her possession, Mrs. Cooper knew, or reasonably should have known, of her potential claims in January 2009,” Stockett's lawyers wrote in court papers.

Ms. Stockett's defense team also said the letter has already been discussed in court and the judge made the correct decision in throwing out the lawsuit.

Atty. Sanders had no comment Aug. 22.

The judge has not made any determination on whether Aibileen was based on Ms. Cooper. Ms. Stockett denies she was.

In the letter, Ms. Stockett says she only met Ms. Cooper a few times, but was thankful she worked for the writer's brother because his kids love her.

“One of the main characters, and my favorite character, is an African American child carer named Aibileen,” the letter said. “Although the spelling is different from yours, and the character was born in 1911, I felt I needed to reach out and tell you that the character isn't based on you in any way.”

The letter goes on to say the book is “purely fiction” and inspired by Ms. Stockett's relationship with “Demetrie, who looked after us and we loved dearly.” The letter is referring to Demetrie McLorn, the Stockett family's housekeeper, who died when the author was a teenager.

An affidavit said Ms. Cooper knows Ms. Stockett, has kept her child before, and had no reason not to trust her.

“She's a liar,” Ms. Cooper screamed outside the courthouse after the lawsuit was dismissed in August. “She did it. She knows she did it.”

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