LEGAL FILE

The estate of Roy Orbison is being sued by the Nashville publishing company Acuff-Rose Music Inc. over some of Orbison’s recent songs. A federal suit claims Orbison’s widow, Barbara, persuaded her husband to break a five-year contract he signed in 1985 to write 10 songs a year in return for $70,000 annually. Acuff-Rose claims that Orbison never delivered the songs despite being paid for the first year and that he instead published the songs on his own with many of them showing up on his posthumously released album “Mystery Girl.” Acuff-Rose is seeking $1 million in damages, plus triple the profit collected by Orbison’s music publishing house, Orbisongs, for tunes written between July, 1985, and the singer’s death in December. The suit also charges that Orbison’s widow and Orbisongs interfered with plans for a movie based on Orbison’s life that Acuff-Rose is planning to make.