1) Penalties for late payments are almost always governed by state contract law, not usury laws.
2) A strict limit like 1.5% strikes me as odd, since in many similar cases judges pull in all kinds of "fairness" questions, like what the market is like, and how much it would burden one party to comply with the rate / go without payment. So maybe the Lawyer was saying, "this is as much as I know I can get from a judge, so even though we might be able to squeak out another half percent, I'm going to call this a 'limit' so it's simpler," OR and this is a big OR, your jurisdiction has just stipulated this rate for your industry. States are wacky, who knows.
2) A strict limit like 1.5% strikes me as odd, since in many similar cases judges pull in all kinds of "fairness" questions, like what the market is like, and how much it would burden one party to comply with the rate / go without payment. So maybe the Lawyer was saying, "this is as much as I know I can get from a judge, so even though we might be able to squeak out another half percent, I'm going to call this a 'limit' so it's simpler," OR and this is a big OR, your jurisdiction has just stipulated this rate for your industry. States are wacky, who knows.