Harper Lee, author of "To Kill A Mockingbird", smiles before receiving the 2007 Presidential Medal of Freedom in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 5, 2007. 
 
 Harper Lee, author of "To Kill A Mockingbird", smiles before receiving the 2007 Presidential Medal of Freedom in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 5, 2007. Close 
 
 Harper Lee, the 87-year-old author of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” sued her literary agent, claiming he took advantage of her age and infirmity to deprive her of royalties from the novel. 
 
 Lee, of Monroeville, Alabama, sued Samuel Pinkus, the agent, and others seeking to ensure her ownership of the copyright to the 1960 novel and to compel forfeiture of the agent’s commissions, according to a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in New York. 
 
 Lee, who has failing eyesight and hearing, was residing in an assisted-living facility in 2007 after suffering a stroke when she signed a document assigning her copyright to Pinkus’s company, according to the complaint. While the copyright was re- assigned to Lee last year after legal action and Pinkus was discharged as Lee’s agent, he was still receiving royalties from the novel as of this year, according to the complaint. 
 
 “Pinkus knew that Harper Lee was an elderly woman with physical infirmities that made it difficult for her to read and see,” Gloria Phares, Lee’s lawyer, said in the complaint. “Harper Lee had no idea she had assigned her copyright” to Pinkus’s company. 
 
 There was no immediate response yesterday to a message left on the voice-mail of Leigh Ann Winick of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, a defendant in the suit and the wife of Pinkus, according to the complaint. She is listed as the president of Keystone Literary LLC, a defendant. 
 
 Also named as a defendant is Gerald Posner, identified as a New York lawyer and investigative journalist who incorporated one of Pinkus’s businesses. Posner didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail sent to his website yesterday seeking comment on the lawsuit. 
 
 Judgment, Arbitration 
 
 Lee’s literary agent for many years was McIntosh & Otis, according to the complaint. When its principal, Eugene Winick, became ill in 2002, his son-in-law, Pinkus, took over and diverted several McIntosh clients to a company he controlled, according to the complaint. McIntosh later won a judgment against Pinkus’s company in an arbitration over commissions he diverted from the firm, according to the complaint. 
 
 “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a story of racial injustice in the American South, won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was made into a film starring Gregory Peck, who won an Oscar for playing the lawyer Atticus Finch. It is Lee’s only published novel. The book has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. 
 
 The case is Lee v. Pinkus, 13-3000, U.S. District Court, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: Don Jeffrey in New York at djeffrey1@bloomberg.net. 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha in San Francisco at mhytha @bloomberg.net ||||| Harper Lee, author of ??"To Kill a Mockingbird,"is suing Samuel Pinkus of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., her former literary agent. (Photo: The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News) Story Highlights No details of the settlement were provided 
 
 Lee accused agent Samuel Pinkus of 'duping' her into signing over copyright to the novel 
 
 Lee won the the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for 'Mockingbird' 
 
 Nelle Harper Lee and Hastings-on-Hudson literary agent Samuel Pinkus have reached an "agreement in principle" to settle a copyright lawsuit the famed author of To Kill a Mockingbird brought against him in May, a lawyer for Pinkus said Friday. 
 
 "The parties reached a mutually satisfactory resolution and everybody would like at this point to put it behind them," said attorney Vincent Carissimi of the Pepper Hamilton firm. 
 
 Carissimi said the settlement was reached in the past week, and papers dismissing the case would be filed in federal court next week. He declined to provide any details of the settlement. 
 
 Also Friday, Pinkus' wife, Leigh Ann Winick, and journalist and author Gerald Posner, whose Miami residence is listed as the address of one of Pinkus' literary companies, were dropped from the lawsuit, Carissimi said. The paperwork was filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York. 
 
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 Lee's lawyer, Gloria Phares, along with Pinkus, Winick and Posner could not be reached for comment Friday. 
 
 Lee, who won the Pulitzer prize in 1961 for To Kill a Mockingbird, alleged in her lawsuit that Pinkus "duped" her into signing over the copyright to the novel in 2007. 
 
 Lee, 87, who lives in Monroeville, Ala., said in the lawsuit she did not recall any discussion with Pinkus about transferring the copyright over to his company Veritas Media, or signing any document to that effect. Her lawsuit alleged the copyright assignment to him was "a gross example of self-dealing" and was intended to "secure to himself an irrevocable interest in the income stream" from sales of her book. 
 
 The federal lawsuit sought forfeiture of all commissions Pinkus and his companies received after the copyright assignment in 2007; damages; and that Pinkus and his companies assign whatever copyright rights they own to Lee. The lawsuit didn't accuse Pinkus of diverting any of the royalties from Lee. 
 
 Author Harper Lee smiles during a ceremony honoring the four new members of the Alabama Academy of Honor, Monday, Aug. 20, 2007, in at the Capitol in Montgomery, Ala. (Photo: Rob Carr, Associated Press) 
 
 In 2011, Pinkus transferred the copyright from Veritas Media to another company he created, Philologus Procurator Inc. That company assigned the copyright back to Lee in an April 13, 2012, letter, according to Lee's lawsuit. 
 
 To Kill a Mockingbird sells about 750,000 copies each year in the United States and Canada. That doesn't include sales of the book in Great Britain and the dozens of languages the novel has been translated into. Lee has earned millions of dollars in royalties. 
 
 Lee's lawsuit stated that she has become increasingly deaf in the last 15 years, her eyesight is failing, and she has lived in an assisted-living facility since suffering a stroke in 2007. 
 
 On Thursday, Winick and Posner were dropped from a separate lawsuit that New York City literary agency McIntosh & Otis filed in state Supreme Court against them, Pinkus, Pinkus' multiple literary companies and two publishers. McIntosh & Otis, which filed the case in June, wants a percentage of commissions Pinkus earned from clients he took with him when he left the company in 2004. 
 
 Winick's father, Eugene Winick, is CEO of McIntosh & Otis and her sister, Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein, is president. 
 
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– Atticus! Harper Lee has sued her former literary agent, claiming that he tricked her into signing over the rights and royalties of To Kill a Mockingbird, reports Reuters. The 87-year-old author alleges that Samuel Pinkus, the son-in-law of her late longtime agent, pulled a fast one on her while she was recovering from a stroke in 2007. “Pinkus knew that Harper Lee was an elderly woman with physical infirmities that made it difficult for her to read and see,” says the complaint filed in federal court yesterday. “Harper Lee had no idea she had assigned her copyright." The story gets a little convoluted from there. The AP says Lee is suing to "re-secure" the copyright to the 1960 novel, but Bloomberg reports that she actually got the copyright back last year in a separate legal action. It adds, however, that Pinkus was still receiving royalties through the legal arrangement he set up in 2007. The new suit demands that he forfeit all of his Mockingbird commissions since the deal. Pinkus himself has not responded publicly.