Agent, Harper Lee, Literary Firm Fight Over "Mockingbird" Money

The former literary agent for To Kill a Mockingbird is embroiled in two lawsuits over the book, according to HollywoodReporter.com.

Mockingbird continues to sell, its popularity undiminished after more than 50 years.

Samuel Pinkus of Hastings-on-Hudson was sued by its author, Harper Lee, in May; and then a month later the agency where he had once worked sued as well. 

The suits turn around copyright, commissions and royalties. 

Attorneys for Pinkus filed a motion in July asking the New York State Supreme Court to dismiss the second suit. 

"Replete with misleading plot holes, the Complaint includes a rehash of an arbitration that ended last year and wholesale cribbing from the complaint in another party's pending action," the motion said.

There were also accusations that he tried to defraud Lee, who is 80, The Hollywood Reporter said.

Pinkus said in the motion that Harper Lee retained all rights to all financial and other benefits from "the property" even while the copyright was assigned to him.