Plain Green Tells a Judge Its 8% Rate Cap Ends Minnesota's Suit Over 697% Loans
Minnesota sued the tribal lender's two top officers personally and wants thousands of loans declared void. Judge Bryan's question cut through both briefs: what stops the rates going back up tomorrow?
What happened. At a July 14 hearing in Minneapolis, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan weighed whether Minnesota can keep pressing to void thousands of online installment loans that Plain Green LLC, a lender controlled and operated by the Chippewa Cree Tribe in Montana, made to Minnesotans at interest rates the state puts between 570% and 697%.1 Attorney General Keith Ellison filed the suit in March against two Plain Green officers as individuals, chief operating officer Ian Stamper-Windy Boy and director of operations James Rader, because tribal sovereign immunity shields the company itself.1
The mootness gambit. Plain Green's motion to dismiss rests on one move: in April it adopted a tribal resolution capping interest for Minnesota borrowers at 8%, the state's general usury limit, and argues that makes the case moot. Bryan struggled to agree. "It doesn't void the loan itself; it would still require the indebted party to pay back the outstanding principal," he said, then asked the sharper question: "Is there any barrier from changing tomorrow and going back to saying interest rates are going to be 700%?" Plain Green's attorney, Richard Joseph Zack, conceded nothing prevents that beyond the adopted policy itself.1
Why an alt-lending desk should care, and the limit of it. These are consumer installment loans, not business credit, so the read-across is the enforcement method, not the product. The method is the story: a state AG suing officers personally to get around an immunity shield, seeking to void the book, bar future lending in the state, and bar negative credit reporting on the debts.1 If a voluntary mid-suit rate cut cannot moot that case, then repricing or exiting a state after the complaint lands stops working as an exit strategy, for any lending structure a state decides to test.
The history in the room. Plain Green is not a new name to enforcement lawyers. It launched as a tribal brand funded and serviced by Think Finance, the Texas firm the CFPB sued in 2017 and which went through Chapter 11 with a settlement that set aside more than $39 million for consumers.4 A class settlement in Gibbs v. Plain Green produced roughly $55.75 million in refunds and canceled loans.5 And Minnesota has run this play before: last year a Wisconsin tribal lender settled with Ellison's office, forgave over $1 million in Minnesota loans, and left the state.6 3
Sources
1 Courthouse News | Judge Questions Limits of Tribal Immunity in Minnesota Predatory Lending Suit
2 ABC7 News | 91-Year-Old Veteran Faces Snowballing Plain Green Loan at 682% Interest
3 ProPublica | Tribal Lender, Accused of Predatory Interest Rates, Exits Minnesota
4 CFPB | Payments to Harmed Consumers: Think Finance
5 Consumer Litigation Associates | Gibbs v. Plain Green LLC: $55 Million Settlement
6 Star Tribune | Wisconsin Tribal Lender Agrees to Cancel Suspect Loans in Minnesota After State Suit
7 Minnesota Reformer | Ellison Sues Montana Company's Officers, Alleging Predatory Lending
8 Pensions & Investments | Florida State Board Extends Active Credit Buildout With $500 Million Direct Lending Allocation
9 Pensions & Investments | Florida State Board Q1 2026 Hires and Commitments
10 Markets Group | Florida SBA's Active Credit Build-Out Enters Execution Phase
11 CoinDesk | Private Credit Faced $15 Billion in Redemption Requests in Brutal Q2
12 Crypto Briefing | Blackstone's BCRED Fields Buyback Requests for 10% of Shares in Q2
13 The Japan Times | Lenders Seek $700 Million After Japanese Payment Firm's Collapse
14 Nippon.com / Jiji Press | Zentoshin Padded Books by 63 Billion Yen Over 20 Years
15 Bloomberg | Lenders Seek $700 Million After Japan Payments Firm's Collapse
16 BigGo Finance | Zentoshin Bankruptcy: Teikoku Databank Figures and the 2024 Arrest
17 CryptoSlate | Bitcoin Treasuries Already Faced Two Collateral Calls in 2026, and Some Loans Leave Just 12 Hours to the Liquidation Line
18 AInvest | Bitcoin Treasury Companies Face $12.8 Billion Debt Maturity Wall by 2028
19 Crypto Briefing | Public Companies' Bitcoin Holdings Doubled in 2025
20 CBS Pittsburgh | Pa. Attorney General Announces Think Finance Payday Loan Relief Settlement
A rate cut that leaves the principal owed is not a voided loan
The legal mechanics matter because they are where Plain Green's argument strains. Under Minnesota law, the general usury limit for written contracts is 8% annually, licensed lenders can charge up to nearly 22% on loans up to $100,000, and specialized payday statutes cap short-term credit at 36% or 50% depending on ability-to-repay analysis. Loans above the cap made without proper licensing are, the state argues, legally void.1 Plain Green's April resolution lowers rates going forward. It does not touch the existing book. Borrowers who took loans at rates the state alleges ran to 697% still owe outstanding principal under the resolution, which is exactly what Bryan flagged from the bench: a resolution case "in the light most favorable" to Plain Green still is not a void-loan case resolved.1
The state's attorney, Bennett Hartz, pushed the durability point: the resolution is a commitment "to cease conduct that would plainly be in their interest to resume if they could, and would be quite easy to do so."1 Zack, for Plain Green, answered that the policy is the company's position going forward and there is no intention to change it. That is a real representation from counsel in open court, and it deserves to be weighed as one. It is also, structurally, revocable, which is the gap Minnesota wants an injunction to close. Bryan delayed ruling on the motion to dismiss and ordered the parties to meet and confer, with a decision expected within days of the hearing. As of this writing, the motion is pending.1
The workaround: sue the officers, not the tribe
Tribal sovereign immunity generally bars suits against tribes and tribal entities unless Congress authorizes them or the tribe waives the shield. Minnesota's complaint respects that line and routes around it: it names Stamper-Windy Boy and Rader as individuals and asks only for prospective relief, declarations that the outstanding loans are void, a bar on future lending to Minnesotans, and a bar on negative credit reporting tied to the debts.1 No damages, no money judgment against the tribe. The structure echoes how private plaintiffs reached Plain Green's leadership in the Gibbs litigation, which settled with loans canceled and roughly $55.75 million returned to borrowers.5
Minnesota has been refining this template for years. In 2023, Ellison's office sued the officers of a different Montana tribal lending operation on the same individual-capacity theory, alleging its Minnesota loans were illegal.7 In 2024, LDF Holdings, tied to the Lac du Flambeau Band in Wisconsin, settled a parallel action by canceling and forgiving more than $1 million in Minnesota loans and exiting the state.6 3 Plain Green is the biggest name yet to face the play, and the one with the deepest litigation file.
The history the court will not need explained
Plain Green launched in 2011 as a tribal brand in the Think Finance orbit: the Texas firm provided the technology, funding, and servicing behind Plain Green, Great Plains Lending, and MobiLoans. The CFPB sued Think Finance in November 2017 for collecting on loans the Bureau alleged were void under state usury laws; the company went through Chapter 11, and the global resolution set aside more than $39 million for consumer redress.4 Pennsylvania's attorney general had sued Think Finance back in 2014, alleging its tribal-brand sites, Plain Green among them, charged effective rates as high as 448%, with the state's litigation later continuing against former chief executive Kenneth Rees; the resulting settlement covered roughly 80,000 Pennsylvanians.20 The individual borrower math is what keeps this model in front of judges and reporters: ABC7 documented a Plain Green loan to a 91-year-old veteran at 682%, where a $900 advance snowballed far past the original principal.2 None of that history decides this motion. All of it explains why Minnesota is unwilling to accept a revocable resolution as the end of the case, and why the state notes Plain Green still markets quick loans for "emergency and cash-flow needs" to low-income borrowers who, it says, discover the real cost only after signing.1
What a mootness ruling would mean past tribal lending
The doctrine at stake is voluntary cessation, and it reaches well beyond tribal structures. If a defendant can moot a state enforcement action by changing the challenged conduct after the complaint lands, every high-rate lender facing a state suit acquires the same exit: reprice, declare the dispute over, keep collecting the legacy book. Courts have historically been skeptical of exactly that move, and Bryan's questions track the skepticism: the cure has to be permanent and complete, not a policy that can be reversed "tomorrow."1 A ruling that the April resolution moots the case would hand that playbook to any lender operating on choice-of-law theories, bank partnerships, or offshore and tribal structures that a state decides to test. A ruling the other way says the only reliable way out of a void-loan claim is to stop collecting the loans the state says are void, which is the one thing Plain Green's resolution conspicuously does not do.1
What should operators check now?
Map where your borrowers sit, not where you are chartered. Minnesota's theory runs through the borrower's location and the state's usury framework, and the AG's office has now brought three of these actions in three years.1 7 A book that looks compliant from the lender's home state can be a void-loan claim from the borrower's.
Treat officer exposure as real. The individual-capacity structure means an immunity shield, corporate or otherwise, does not keep the people running the program out of a federal courtroom. Officers and directors of high-rate programs should assume their names go in the caption.1
If you reprice under pressure, document what happens to the legacy book. Bryan's line is the test now: does the change void the old loans and stop collection, or does it leave principal owed? A forward-only fix that keeps collecting is the fact pattern this hearing just spotlighted.1
Watch the ruling. Bryan said he would rule within days of the July 14 hearing, and the ordered meet-and-confer could produce a consent decree instead of an opinion. Either outcome sets the reference point other state AGs cite next.1
Our Opinion
Voluntary compliance priced at zero is worth what it costs. Plain Green's resolution asks the court to trade an enforceable injunction for a promise the company's own lawyer concedes is structurally revocable.
Judges rarely take that trade, and the interesting question is not whether Bryan is skeptical, he said so from the bench, but what his ruling does to the economics of mid-suit repricing. If the case proceeds, the lesson for every high-rate structure is that the moment a state files, the legacy book is the liability, and no forward-looking fix launders it. If the case is dismissed as moot, expect the repricing gambit to show up in the next dozen state enforcement actions, and expect state AGs to respond by front-loading injunction requests.
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