Reese Witherspoon and her clothing company Draper James are reportedly being sued for the dress giveaway to teachers amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Back in April, Draper James’ Instagram account announced that they were giving out a free dress to teachers as a way to thank them for hard work in educating their children. The post also mentioned: “Offer valid while supplies last.” The giveaway also got shoutouts from morning talk shows like Good Morning America and Today.
It appears a lot of teachers where down for a free DJ dress – there are over 3 million educators in the U.S. and most of them are female. According to The New York Times, the application, which reportedly asked them to submit both pictures of their school IDs and their work email addresses to qualify, “crashed almost immediately.” By the end of the application period, they reportedly got almost a million applications. The thing is, they only had 250 dresses to give away.
Apparently, they didn’t expect the overwhelming response to their post. Marissa Cooley, the senior vice president for brand marketing and creative at Draper James, previously told the publication: “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.”
Now, according to TMZ, three women “are putting together a class-action lawsuit” against Reese and her company, alleging that the dress giveaway was misleading and that the company benefited from the publicity that the giveaway brought.
Draper James’ attorney Theane Evangelis has since issued a statement: “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.”
She continues, “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.”
