Class Certified in “Tribal Immunity” Case Brought by Nichols Kaster, PLLP and Gupta Wessler PLLC

On October 31, 2019, the Court granted Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification in MacDonald v. CashCall, Inc. The case involves more than 11,000 borrowers in New Jersey whose loans through a company called Western Sky carry interest rates ranging from 79% to 200%. Plaintiffs allege that CashCall and the other Defendants in this case are the true lenders and that they used a purported tribal affiliation to avoid usury and related laws. Plaintiffs sued under New Jersey usury law, the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, and RICO. In granting class certification, the Court held that: the proposed classes are sufficiently numerous; class members are ascertainable; the class representatives are typical and adequate; Nichols Kaster, Gupta Wessler, and Patricia Barasch are adequate class counsel; a class action is the superior means of resolving the dispute; individual issues do not predominate, and “the questions of whether Defendants charged interest rates in excess of those permitted by New Jersey law will be common, as will questions of whether Defendants and Western Sky together formed an enterprise sufficient for liability under RICO.” The case is MacDonald, et al. v. CashCall, Inc., et al., No. 2:16-cv-02781-MCA-ESK and is filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.