The New Jersey Consumer Finance Licensing Act (CFLA) requires consumer lenders to obtain a license, and provides that if a lender violates that provision “in the making or collection” of a loan, the loan contract “shall be void” and the lender “shall be guilty of a crime of the fourth degree.” In a unanimous opinion issued yesterday in Diana v. LVNV Funding, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that the statute does not provide an implied private right of action for borrowers seeking to invalidate loan contracts issued by unlicensed lenders.
That decision does not make any sense to me. The statute specifically provides that the the contracts are void. I don’t see why one couldn’t bring an action for a declaratory judgment that the contract is void.