Perez

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

I. Facts

As its name implies, Public Storage rents self-storage units to the public. When a person rents a storage unit from Public Storage, he is confronted with two documents, as pertinent here. The first is the Insurance Addendum (Addendum). The Addendum states two times that the renter “is obligated . . . to insure his own goods” and must “maintain insurance that covers loss or damage for the personal property” stored in the unit. The Addendum also requires the renter to sign an acknowledgment in which Public Storage explains the consequence of not complying with this

2 obligation—namely, that “if [the renter] do[es] not have insurance . . . [he is] personally responsible for any loss or damage to [his] goods,” and those goods are deemed to be stored “at [his] sole risk.”1 The second document is the Lease/Rental Agreement (Lease). Section six of the Lease mirrors the Addendum. Like the Addendum, it states that the renter is “obligated under the terms of [the Lease] to insure his own goods.” Also like the Addendum, the Lease explains the consequence of not complying with this obligation—namely, that if the renter “does not obtain insurance…