Providence Industries v. Lularoe CA4/2

I. FACTS

Providence’s initial complaint in this matter was filed in November 2018. The

case garnered some degree of public attention, including news stories and discussion on

various public websites.

On September 19, 2019, outside counsel for Providence, Reed Smith, LLP (Reed

Smith) received an anonymous letter relating to the litigation. The letter was processed

in the usual manner for incoming mail correspondence in the matter; it was scanned by a

secretary, saved to the electronic client file, and distributed by email to the litigation team

and Providence’s in-house general counsel.

2 A Reed Smith lawyer representing Providence, Marsha Houston, skimmed the

letter and became concerned that “it appeared to possibly contain a page of confidential

material that was not public.” She expressed her concern to another attorney on the

litigation team, Chris Rivas. Rivas, too, skimmed the document, and he agreed with

Houston that it might contain confidential material. Rivas and Houston recognized that

the document appeared to be from the same source as three other anonymous

communications received within the previous month. Those earlier communications had

not appeared…