Nashville’s Thomas Nelson Inc., the nation’s largest Christian publishing company, has filed a lawsuit against one of its major competitors, claiming that the rival publisher conspired with a freelance artist to copy the illustrations for one of Thomas Nelson’s newest Christian series for children.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Nashville, seeks unspecified damages against Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Zondervan Corp., a division of publishing giant, HarperCollins.

In the lawsuit filed Nov. 13, Thomas Nelson claimed it contracted with California illustrator Meredith Johnson to provide illustrations a series of children’s books and related products called “Gigi, God’s Little Princess.”

As part of that agreement, Thomas Nelson said Johnson agreed not to use the artwork in any matter to compete with the Gigi product line, which now includes books, DVDs, dolls, toys stickers and apparel.

The series’ latest DVD, “Gigi’s First Day of School” was the top-selling Christian DVD for two weeks in 2009, according to SoundScan charts.

In the lawsuit, Thomas Nelson claims that it paid Johnson lump sum payments for the rights to the Gigi artwork in 2005.

But the publisher claimed that Johnson expressed displeasure with the compensation for her work, and began negotiating with Zondervan for a series of children’s books called “The Princess Twins” that were released earlier in 2009.

In the lawsuit, Thomas Nelson accuses Johnson of breaching her contract with the company, and says Zondervan “is engaged in unfair competition” because it “uses illustrations in the Princess Twins Series that are substantially similar to the … Gigi Series.”

In the lawsuit, Thomas Nelson is asking for, among other things:
• a permanent injunction to prevent further publication of the Princess Twin Series;
• the profits from the sale of books and related products for Zondervan’s “Princess Twin” series,
• actual and compensatory damages.

A Zondervan spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.

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