Retailer Conn’s Appliances Inc. has won a battle to have its former senior legal counsel barred from representing a plaintiff now suing the company on causes of action similar to those that the in-house attorney defended during her time there. Conn’s bid to have the lawyer sanctioned for filing the lawsuit failed, however.
Judge Vanessa Gilmore of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Houston found that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and Texas Debt Collection Act claims that Trista Johnson brought against Conn’s in May for a client are “substantially related” to the work she did while serving as Conn’s No. 2 in-house lawyer from December 2016 to February 2018.
