Reese Witherspoon’s legal team is trying to put out not-so-little fires everywhere after a group of teachers filed a lawsuit against the star and her clothing company!
Back in April, the Morning Show actress offered teachers around the globe a chance to win a free dress through a Draper James giveaway in an attempt to champion the world’s educators during the coronavirus pandemic.
Unfortunately, many of the teachers felt like big losers when they realized only a fraction of participants who applied to the giveaway would actually be getting a dress! Now, three women have filed a class-action lawsuit against the Oscar winner and the apparel company she founded for benefiting off of the giveaway while most teachers walked away empty handed.
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In the suit, the educators claim they were required to put in personal information to enter the giveaway and that they’d be notified within three days whether or not they had won. After the giveaway was announced, teachers flooded the brand’s social media accounts with complaints that they never received emails confirming their applications were received.
While the giveaway did mention the offer would be valid “while supplies last,” the legal docs say the teachers were mislead because Draper James failed to mention just how little “supplies” it was willing to give away: the company only had a total of 250 dresses to give out to the nearly one million participants who had reportedly submitted to the giveaway!
The teachers argue in the suit that the total cost of 250 Draper James dresses would measure up to an “estimated paltry $12,500 in actual cost” to the actress’ company, adding the giveaway came “at a time when other individuals of [Reese] Witherspoon’s renown were offering millions of dollars to COVID-19 victims.”
Not only that, they claim Reese went full Facebook and straight up sold their personal information!
Per the lawsuit, teachers “provided their personal contact information… such as their teacher ID information, their teacher work email addresses, and even copies of their employee work badges — all highly sensitive information that could be exploited by cyber-criminals or used or sold by Defendants (which, it turns out, they did).”
Oof.
The women who filed the lawsuit also say Reese and her brand are actually benefiting from the cause twice over thanks to all the good publicity through mentions on talk shows like Today and Good Morning America.
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Marissa Cooley, Senior Vice President for the company’s marketing and creative departments, previously told the New York Times that Draper James merely underestimated the amount of teachers who wanted to get their hands on a free dress. She said:
“We felt like we moved too quickly and didn’t anticipate the volume of the response. We were really overwhelmed. It was way more volume than the company had ever seen. We expected the single-digit thousands.”
According to the outlet, the original Instagram post about the giveaway was viewed 400,000 times and close to one million applications were received. The brand said the application form “crashed” right away due to the high volume of applications.
As for the lawsuit, an attorney for the company said in a statement on Tuesday that Reese and co. only had good intentions with the giveaway, telling outlets:
“This lawsuit is an unjust attempt to exploit Draper James’ good intentions to honor the teacher community by gifting hundreds of free dresses. The fact that supplies were limited, such that a free dress could not be provided to every teacher who responded, was disclosed and is no basis for a lawsuit. Draper James looks forward to defending this case, to continuing its efforts to acknowledge the extraordinary contributions made by teachers during this time of need, and to being vindicated in court.”
The women have sued on behalf of all the participants and are seeking damages.
What do U think about this lawsuit, Perezcious readers?
[Image via Instar/WENN]
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