Ablene Cooper and The Help: Inside the $75,000 Lawsuit and Dismissal

Ablene Cooper’s lawsuit against Kathryn Stockett was a 2011 Mississippi state-court case in which Cooper, a Jackson maid and nanny, accused the author of The Help of using her name, likeness, and personal details without permission to create the character Aibileen Clark. Cooper sought $75,000 in tort damages for misappropriation. A Hinds County judge dismissed the case in August 2011 on statute-of-limitations grounds, without ever ruling on whether the character was in fact based on her.¹

Who Ablene Cooper Is

Cooper worked as a nanny and maid for Robert Stockett III and his wife, Carol, in Jackson, Mississippi. Robert is Kathryn Stockett’s brother, and Cooper had also babysat for the author’s own daughter at some point.² Stockett said in a court filing that she had been living in New York during Cooper’s employment and had barely interacted with her.³

What Cooper Claimed

Cooper filed her complaint in Hinds County Circuit Court in February 2011, represented by attorney Edward Sanders.⁴⁵ The $75,000 damages figure was reportedly set to keep the case in state court rather than federal court.⁶

She argued that Aibileen Clark was unmistakably drawn from her own life. The parallels she cited included the near-identical first names (Ablene and Aibileen), the fact that both women are maids in Jackson, and that both have a gold tooth and a deceased son.⁶ Cooper called the portrayal humiliating, singling out a passage in which Aibileen compares her skin color to a cockroach.⁷ She also said Stockett had personally assured her that her likeness would not appear in the book.⁸

Stockett’s Defense

Stockett’s legal team denied that the character was based on Cooper at all. They said Aibileen Clark was inspired by Demetrie McLorn, the Stockett family’s longtime housekeeper, who died when the author was a teenager. Stockett had written publicly that the novel was “inspired by my relationship with Demetrie, who looked after us and we loved dearly.”⁹ Her attorneys also pointed to age and era: Aibileen is depicted as middle-aged in 1962, while Cooper was middle-aged in 2011.⁴

The Handwritten Note That Decided the Case

In January 2009, Stockett mailed Cooper a copy of the newly published book along with a handwritten letter. It read, in part: “One of the main characters, and my favorite character, is an African American child carer named Aibileen. 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.” Stockett called the book “purely fiction.”⁹

The note cut both ways. For Stockett, it proved she had disclosed the character’s existence to Cooper in January 2009, which is when she said the statute-of-limitations clock started running. For Cooper, it explained why she had not read the book or suspected anything for months: the author herself had told her not to worry.

Why the Case Was Dismissed

On August 16, 2011, Hinds County Circuit Judge Tomie Green granted Stockett summary judgment and dismissed the case.¹ Under Mississippi law, Cooper had one year from the date she learned of the alleged misappropriation to file suit. Judge Green ruled that the clock started in January 2009, when Stockett mailed her the book and note. Because Cooper did not file until February 2011, the deadline had passed.¹⁰

The judge explicitly declined to rule on whether Cooper was actually the basis for Aibileen Clark, saying the limitations issue “trumped those matters.”¹⁰ The central factual question was never answered by a court. Outside the courthouse, Cooper told reporters through tears: “She’s a liar. She did it. She knows she did it.”¹¹

The Reconsideration Motion

The day after the dismissal, Sanders filed a motion asking Judge Green to reconsider and reinstate the lawsuit.¹⁰ He argued that the one-year clock should not have started until the summer of 2010, when Cooper actually read the book. Cooper had received Stockett’s note reassuring her that the character was not based on her, and she had no reason to distrust the author’s word until she read the novel and recognized the similarities herself.¹² Sanders said he would appeal if necessary.¹³ The available reporting does not establish whether the reconsideration motion was granted or whether a formal appeal was ever pursued, and no appellate ruling on the case appears in the record.

A Family Divided

The lawsuit split the Stockett family. Robert Stockett III and his wife Carol, Cooper’s employers, sided with Cooper. According to Cooper, the couple told her: “Ms. Abie, we love you, we support you,” and encouraged her to do what she needed to do.² The plaintiff was suing the author with the support of the author’s own brother and sister-in-law.

The Scale of What Cooper Was Suing Over

By mid-2011, The Help had sold more than three million hardcover copies, and Penguin had printed more than four million paperbacks. It was the only novel to sell over a million hardcovers in both 2009 and 2010, and it topped The New York Times bestseller lists in multiple formats. The film adaptation, released in August 2011 as the case was being decided, grossed more than $79 million in its opening weeks.¹⁴ Cooper’s $75,000 demand was small against those numbers.

Her claim also landed inside a wider public argument about the book. The Association of Black Women Historians issued an open statement asserting that The Help “distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers” and called its depiction of the maids “a disappointing resurrection of Mammy.”¹⁵¹⁶ The court never weighed any of that. The one-year clock had run out, and the merits of Ablene Cooper’s claim remain legally unresolved.

1
San Diego Union-Tribune. Judge Throws Out Suit Against The Help Author
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ABC News. Ablene Cooper Sues Author Kathryn Stockett
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WAPT. Stockett Says She Barely Knew Woman Suing Over The Help
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The Guardian. The Help Maid Loses Case
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ABA Journal. Best-Selling Author of The Help Is Sued by Family Maid
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Commonweal Magazine. Southern Discomfort
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Salon. The Help Lawsuit
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NPR. The Help Spawns a Lawsuit and a Question
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CBS News. Author’s Letter Is Focal Point in The Help Suit
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Post and Courier. Judge Is Asked to Reconsider The Help Suit
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The Hollywood Reporter. Judge Tosses The Help Lawsuit
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Global News. Handwritten Letter From Author Kathryn Stockett Becomes Focal Point in The Help Lawsuit
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Mississippi Free Press. Ablene Cooper to Appeal Help Decision
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The Hollywood Reporter. The Help’s Strong Box Office
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NPR. The Help Draws Audiences and Ire
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The Root. Black Female Historians Slam The Help