New Jersey Class Action Certified Against Public Storage

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On Nov. 16, Class certification was granted for a New Jersey class action lawsuit that alleges Public Storage lease agreements contain multiple clauses that violate New Jersey law.

Chief U.S. District Judge Jerome B. Simandle ordered that the Class is certified for all persons who rented a storage unit from Public Storage in the State of New Jersey from Sept. 7, 2007 to Oct. 21, 2014. Public Storage has identified that it entered into at least 159,240 leases in New Jersey during that timeframe.

Lead plaintiff Jackeline Martinez-Santiago asserted that she rented a storage unit from Public Storage in 2012, and listed Mr. Orlando Colon as an “alternate contact name” on the contract. Mr. Colon slipped on some ice outside of the storage unit, and sued Public Storage. Public Storage, in turn, used the “indemnification” clause in its contract to add Martinez-Santiago to that lawsuit and tried to make her responsible for Colon’s injuries.

Mr. Colon’s personal injury lawsuit was settled by Public Storage, and Martinez-Santiago filed this class action lawsuit against the company claiming that the contract provision, and three others, violated New Jersey law.

Specifically, the Public Storage class action lawsuit claims that the contracts contain an illegal “indemnification” clause, which says that the renter will protect Public Storage from “claims of injury or loss by [the renter’s] visitors or invitees.” Among three other contract provisions the Public Storage lawsuit identifies as illegal, the contact’s “exculpatory” clause states that Public Storage is not responsible for any damage to property or people caused by its own negligence or recklessness.

Finally, the class action lawsuit claims that Public Storage leases violated New Jersey law by “improperly limiting consumers’ rights to raise defenses in lawsuits arising from the lease agreement” and by “improperly stating that some provisions may be invalid without specifying which provisions are unenforceable in New Jersey.”

Public Storage attempted to argue that the class action lawsuit should not move forward, because the class action claims were not the same for all Class Members, and that “[r]esolving the class claims here would require this Court to issue broad, categorical pronouncements about the scope and enforceability” of their contracts.

Judge Simandle disagreed, and ordered that “Defendant’s conduct – entering into a lease agreement containing these provisions – is common to all class members, and each class member was harmed in the same way in that each class member signed a lease that allegedly violated his or her clearly established legal rights.”

Public Storage previously tried to get the class action lawsuit dismissed, but that order was denied when the judge found “that Plaintiff had stated plausible claims for relief” under New Jersey law.

Public Storage has recently settled another class action lawsuit filed in Florida on its collection of money for self insurance. You can find more details about that settlement here.

Martinez-Santiago is represented by Andrew P. Bell, James A. Berry, and Michael A. Galpern of Locks Law Firm LLC, and Charles N. Riley of Riley & Shane.

The New Jersey Public Storage Class Action Lawsuit is Martinez-Santiago, et al. v. Public Storage, Case No. 14-302 (JBS/AMD), in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.