Dawn B. Eyerly and Bradley D. Ross Win Defense Verdict for Founder of Public Storage

Freeman Freeman & Smiley partners, Dawn B. Eyerly and Bradley D. Ross, represented B. Wayne Hughes, the founder and chairman of Public Storage, in Kingoschu Family Partners, et al., v. Public Storage, et al., in which the shareholder class action suit was defeated.  After five years of litigation and a nearly two-week trial, the team received a defense verdict on a hard fought class action case for breach of fiduciary duty against Mr. Hughes.  In the litigation, the Plaintiff class sought more than $80 million alleging that Mr. Hughes, along with Public Storage, undervalued partnership units when negotiating a merger in 2011.

Ms. Eyerly is a trial attorney with substantial litigation experience, including several jury trials, bench trials, arbitrations, and mediations. She also has extensive appellate experience in both State and Federal courts. Ms. Eyerly represents individuals as well as entities, ranging from small, family-owned businesses to multi-million dollar international corporations. She specializes in a variety of areas, including contract disputes, real estate litigation, employment matters, construction disputes, and negligence/premises liability litigation. She also has extensive experience representing self-storage facilities in all aspects of litigation.

Mr. Ross’ extensive business litigation expertise includes matters involving unfair business practices and related business torts, real estate disputes, partnership disputes, construction litigation, common carrier disputes and commercial litigation in state and federal trial and appellate courts, as well as in alternative dispute resolution tribunals.  His employment law experience includes representing small to Fortune 500 employers in claims involving complex class action wage and hour issues, wrongful termination, discrimination and harassment claims in state and federal courts including the California Supreme Court.