James v. National Financial, LLC

James (plaintiff), a low-wage worker with limited financial literacy, borrowed $200 from National Financial (defendant), which had restructured its payday loans as renewing installment loans to evade Delaware's payday-loan ban. National advertised a misleading "block rate" and told customers the APR was meaningless unless the loan ran a full year, while the actual loan structure required 26 interest-only payments plus a large balloon payment, yielding a real APR of 1,095 percent. After James injured her hand and missed work, National refused accommodations and aggressively pursued collection; James sued, challenging the loan as unconscionable and under the Truth in Lending Act, and the trial court allowed her individual claims to proceed after declining to certify a class.