Representing a national self-storage company in a Philadelphia lawsuit, Russo & Gould’s Chuck Stokes forced a Plaintiff to withdraw her claims against the client, and obtained court approval of the dismissal of the client just minutes before the jury panel was brought into the courtroom. 

In Brooks, et al. v. Public Storage, et al., the Plaintiffs claimed that personal property allegedly valued at approximately $75,000 went missing while it was supposedly stored in a unit in the client’s self-storage facility.  A small truck load of Plaintiffs’ property was stored in the unit by their landlord, who had recently evicted Plaintiffs from a rental property.  During discovery, Chuck showed that the Plaintiffs were unable to prove that the allegedly missing items were ever placed in the storage unit, because they were not present when the property was stored, and their attorney had been unable to locate the movers.  Additionally, Chuck was prepared to present testimony that the units are locked by the renters, and that facility employees have no access to the contents.  Faced with the possibility of being required to pay part of the Defendant’s litigation costs in the likely event of a defense verdict, the Plaintiffs agreed to withdraw their claims and dismiss Chuck’s client from the case, which eventually resulted in a $25,000 verdict in favor of the landlord for unpaid rent and attorney fees.