On December 27, 2018, fifteen state Attorneys General filed an amici brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit opposing the use of structures in which non-tribal payday lenders affiliate with tribal lenders to benefit from their tribal immunity and avoid state usury caps. The brief was filed in an appeal from a district court ruling, which held that a Michigan-based payday lender could not claim tribal immunity in a consumer class action because it could not prove it was an actual tribal entity. The Attorneys General argue that granting tribal immunity to non-tribal lenders would “bar enforcement of state consumer protection laws as well as, potentially, investigations into their activities.” The brief rejects the payday lender’s arguments that the plaintiff should bear the burden of negating “arm-of-the-tribe immunity” and instead urges the court to place the burden on the entity seeking the immunity. Allowing a non-tribal entity to benefit from sovereign immunity without “rigorous demonstration”, the Attorneys General argue, “may well undermine the purpose for tribal immunity” and “would have serious consequences for States’ ability to protect consumers.”

The brief was filed by the District of Columbia and the States of Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Virginia.