I saw the following in today’s Publisher’s Lunch, the online service of Publisher’s Marketplace, the publishing trade magazine. The lesson is that statutes of limitations really matter.
A Mississippi court judge has thrown out a lawsuit by Ablene Cooper alleging that Kathryn Stockett based a key character in her bestselling novel THE HELP on her. Cooper, the African-American maid for one of Stockett’s brothers, claimed Stockett used her likeness without her permission, but Judge Tomie Green dimissed the case because a one-year statute of limitations elapsed between when Stockett gave Cooper a copy of the book and when the lawsuit was filed.