Fineday Funds Lawsuit: Rent-a-Tribe Claims and Tribal Immunity

The Fineday Funds lawsuit is a federal class action filed in June 2024 by a Georgia borrower who says the online lender charged her a 617% annual rate on a $1,400 loan and used a claimed affiliation with the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin to sidestep state usury laws. The complaint, Matthews v. Eagle Lending, LLC, asks the court to declare the loans void, return money already collected, and treat the operation as an illegal racketeering enterprise reaching borrowers in 46 states and the District of Columbia.¹

What the Complaint Alleges

Madelaine Matthews, an Atlanta resident, filed suit on June 10, 2024, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia (Case No. 1:24-cv-02524). She says she borrowed $1,400 from Fineday Funds in late December 2023. The loan carried an annual percentage rate of 617.862% and required eighteen bi-weekly payments of $375.03, for a total repayment of more than $6,700.¹

Georgia caps interest on small-dollar loans at 8%, and the complaint says Fineday Funds never obtained the state license needed to make such loans in the first place. The loan agreement required Matthews to waive her rights under state and federal law and to bring any dispute exclusively under tribal law. She argues that structure exists to keep borrowers from enforcing the protections they would otherwise have.¹

What “Rent-a-Tribe” Means in This Case

The complaint centers on a theory called rent-a-tribe lending. It describes an arrangement in which non-tribal payday lenders pay a small federally recognized tribe to serve as the public face of a lending business. According to the suit, the tribe lends its name and sovereign status in exchange for a share of revenue and sometimes a handful of jobs, while non-tribal principals design the products, run daily operations, and collect most of the profits. The tribal label is then used to claim immunity from state interest-rate caps and licensing rules.²

In this case, the complaint alleges the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin provides that veneer. Fineday Funds is the trade name of Eagle Lending, LLC, which claims to be an economic arm of the tribe, wholly owned through Wolf River Development Company. The suit names fifteen unidentified “John Doe” co-conspirators it describes as the non-tribal individuals and organizations who allegedly built the operation and take most of what it earns.¹

Who Is Being Sued

The defendants fall into three groups. Eagle Lending, LLC is the lender itself. Wolf River Development Company, described as the tribal holding company that owns and controls Fineday Funds, is named alongside its CEO, Crystal Chapman-Chevalier, who has held the role since June 2022.³ The third group is nine members of the Menominee Tribal Legislature, sued in their individual capacities, including Chairperson Gena Kakkak, Vice-Chairperson Dana Waubanascum, and Secretary Spencer Gauthier.¹

The individual-capacity suits matter. Courts have generally allowed borrowers to pursue monetary damages against individuals who allegedly took part in illegal lending conduct, even when the tribal entity itself is immune. The complaint cites the Second Circuit’s decision in Gingras v. Think Finance (2019) and the Fourth Circuit’s in Hengle v. Treppa (2021) as support for that route.¹

What the Lawsuit Asks the Court to Do

The complaint brings claims under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and its Georgia counterpart, alleging that the defendants participated in an enterprise that issued and collected on usurious loans, operated without required state licenses, and used tribal affiliation to hide the true operators.¹

Separate counts allege violations of the Georgia Industrial Loan Act and the Georgia Payday Lending Act. Loans made in violation of those statutes are void ab initio under Georgia law, meaning they are treated as if they never existed. On that basis, the suit says borrowers should owe nothing beyond the original loan proceeds and asks for treble damages, meaning three times the interest and charges collected.¹

Matthews sues on behalf of a proposed class of borrowers who took out similar loans. The complaint alleges the enterprise has collected tens of millions of dollars from borrowers, and identifies 46 states plus the District of Columbia where Fineday Funds allegedly issued loans that broke local usury or licensing laws.¹

Why Tribal Immunity May Not Block the Case

The complaint expects a tribal sovereign immunity defense and argues at length why it should fail. It leans on the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, which held that tribes conducting business off-reservation are subject to non-discriminatory state laws that apply to everyone else.¹

More recent decisions have narrowed the shield further. In Hengle v. Treppa (4th Cir. 2021), the Fourth Circuit refused to enforce arbitration clauses in rent-a-tribe loan agreements, ruling that requiring borrowers to resolve disputes exclusively under tribal law amounted to a “prospective waiver” of federal statutory rights because tribal law contained no usury protections or RICO remedies. The court also confirmed tribal officials could be sued individually for injunctive relief. Interest rates in that case ran from 544% to 920%.⁴⁵

Georgia has already handled a version of the fight. In Western Sky Financial, LLC v. State ex rel. Olens (2016), the Georgia Supreme Court held that the state’s Payday Lending Act applies to online lenders who target Georgia borrowers regardless of tribal affiliation, rejected tribal sovereign immunity defenses, and upheld an order requiring defendants to deposit more than $15.2 million collected from Georgia borrowers into the court’s registry.⁶

The Supreme Court has also moved in that direction. In Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Coughlin (2023), an 8-1 opinion by Justice Jackson held that the Bankruptcy Code “unequivocally abrogates the sovereign immunity of all governments, including federally recognized Indian tribes.” Justice Thomas wrote separately to say tribal immunity should not extend to commercial activity conducted beyond a tribe’s territory at all.⁷

Other Lawsuits Against the Same Operators

The Matthews case is not the only one. A separate class action, Permenter v. Eagle Lending, LLC d/b/a Fineday Funds (Case No. 1:24-cv-01204), was filed on July 17, 2024, in the Southern District of Indiana. It also names Chapman-Chevalier and brings RICO claims based on the same lending practices.⁸

In August 2024, another class action, Hall v. East Line Lending, LLC (Case No. 1:24-cv-01385), was filed in the same Indiana district against Wolf River and Chapman-Chevalier over a different brand, East Line Lending, alleging loans that exceeded Indiana’s 36% annual interest cap. The Hall complaint says defendants “are aware through prior litigation that their lending operations are illegal” and points to United States v. Tucker, a federal criminal prosecution in which operators of a similar rent-a-tribe scheme were convicted of felonies.³

Where the Case Stands

As of early 2025, Matthews remains pending in the Northern District of Georgia. No rulings have been issued yet on class certification, on the sovereign immunity defenses the defendants are expected to raise, or on the merits. The related Indiana cases against Eagle Lending and its affiliates are also in early stages. Wolf River Development Company continues to list online lending among its business operations on the Menominee Tribe’s official website.⁹

Borrowers who took a loan from Fineday Funds and believe the rate exceeded their state’s usury cap may fall within the proposed nationwide class if the case proceeds. Any recovery, and any ruling on whether the loans are void, will depend on how the court handles the immunity questions the complaint has already teed up.

1
ClassAction.org. Matthews v. Eagle Lending, LLC et al., Class Action Complaint
2
ClassAction.org. Rent-a-Tribe Class Action Lawsuit Alleges Fineday Funds Issued Predatory Loans
3
ClassAction.org. Hall v. East Line Lending, LLC et al., Class Action Complaint
4
Justia. Hengle v. Treppa, No. 20-1062 (4th Cir. 2021)
5
FindLaw. Hengle v. Treppa, 18 F.4th 113 (4th Cir. 2021)
6
FindLaw. Western Sky Financial, LLC v. State ex rel. Olens (2016)
7
Supreme Court of the United States. Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Coughlin, No. 22-227
8
Internet Archive. Permenter v. Eagle Lending, LLC d/b/a Fineday Funds, Complaint
9
Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. Wolf River Development Company