[jettio]

With appropriate disclaimers that I have no idea what I am writing on my lunch break:

This would be a mutual benefit bailment. You bought a service and they got paid, so both parties benefitted from the arrangement.

Standard for negligence for mutual benefit bailment would be ordinary care, which means that you would have to prove that the storage facility operators failed to do what any reasonable storage facility operator would have done.

You would have to convince the fact finder, judge or jury, that any reasonable storage facility operator would have foreseen and prevented the particular events that caused the injury.

Criminal acts of third parties can be a defense, unless a special relationship and the criminal act is foreseeable. In this situation, theft from a storage facility, would seem to be a foreseeable crime that would impact the storage facility customer and the whole purpose of the arrangement would be to safely store property.

Sounds like you might have a case as long as the storage contract does not have any release of liability.

I recently researched mutual benefit bailment with injury from a criminal act of a third party for two different clients, so I think that is the state of the law in Missouri. Settled one on demand letters and drafting the other demand letter this week.

Bottom line: Is there any release of liability in the contract? If so, would have to check to see if it would hold up.

Otherwise, would the ordinary, everyday, reasonable storage facility operator had taken precautions that would have prevented this particular theft from occurring in that manner.