Morningstar Storage SCRA Case: Deployed Sergeant's Unit Sold for $390

What happened

The United States sued Morningstar Properties, LLC, which does business as Morningstar Storage, in the Tampa Division of the Middle District of Florida on September 19, 2024; DOJ's release that day announced that a consent order still awaiting court approval had been reached. According to the complaint, Morningstar is a North Carolina company based in Matthews that develops, owns and operates self-storage facilities and marinas, mainly in the Southeastern United States; the consent order puts its network at 99 self-storage facilities, nine of them in the Middle District. DOJ's release says the case came from a U.S. Air Force referral.

Three stores are named: one in Tampa about 17 miles from MacDill Air Force Base and U.S. Central Command, one in DeLand about 30 miles from Coast Guard Station Ponce de Leon, and one in Columbia, South Carolina about 12 miles from Fort Jackson. According to the complaint, Morningstar's Storage Operations Manual acknowledged that military customers are protected by the SCRA, yet the company did not ask renters for a date of birth or Social Security number, and did not require a Defense Manpower Data Center search, a file review, or a look in the unit for uniforms, awards or equipment before an auction. Its standard storage agreement told military renters to give written notice, the complaint says, while offering no box, form or address for doing so.

The lead allegation concerns an Air Force Staff Sergeant on full-time active duty since September 2015. On or about July 8, 2022, stationed at MacDill, she rented a Tampa unit from the store's previous operator, CubeSmart, marked herself a military member with an end of service date in 2025, set rent to charge automatically, and signed a military rider giving her unit's contact details and naming an agent with full authority over the space. She deployed to Jordan on July 15, 2022, leaving nearly all her household goods, which she valued at approximately $29,000, along with military awards and coins, sonogram pictures and her children's keepsakes. A Morningstar affiliate bought the store on or about August 9, 2022. The complaint says Morningstar failed to obtain her payment information from CubeSmart, so the automatic payments were turned off, its emails went unread overseas, and Morningstar did not contact her agent or her unit. Her property sold at public auction on December 30, 2022 for $390. She came home on January 26, 2023.

Two Army servicemembers' units were also sold. At the Columbia store, the complaint says, a sergeant told employees two days before the June 23, 2022 auction that he wanted to remove his military items. At DeLand, a renter who signed up in January 2022 entered military service on June 27, 2022, and his unit was auctioned on September 9, 2022 after Morningstar's own pre-auction photos showed a military duffel bag stamped US. Morningstar denies the pattern or practice allegations (consent order paragraph 5). The court entered the order on November 1, 2024 for four years (paragraph 36).

The law behind this: 50 U.S.C. § 3958

Enforcement of storage liens: read the statute , or read § 3958 in plain English, with its enforcement record .

Our servicemembers should never have to worry that their property, including their most prized keepsakes and personal treasures, will be sold out from under them while they are on duty.

Who was covered

The three servicemembers identified in the complaint, each owed payment under a separate paragraph of the order (consent order paragraphs 21 to 23). The injunction reaches every SCRA-protected customer, covering a reservist's early alert period, the period of military service, and the 90 days that follow it (paragraph 8). The order releases only Section 3958 claims concerning those three and does not release claims over practices outside the complaint (paragraph 29). The complaint alleges, on information and belief, that Morningstar may have enforced liens on other protected servicemembers' property without court orders.

What the settlement paid

• $80,000 to the Air Force Staff Sergeant and $5,000 to each of the two Army servicemembers, each due within seven days of entry and delivered only after that servicemember signs a release of claims (consent order paragraphs 21 to 23). DOJ's release described the total Morningstar agreed to pay as $130,000.
• A $40,000 civil penalty to the Treasury within seven days of entry (paragraph 25).
• Morningstar may not pursue any deficiency left on the three storage contracts and must indemnify the three against anyone else who does. It may not report negative information about them to a credit bureau and must seek removal of any it caused (paragraph 24).
• New customers must give a first and last name and a date of birth or Social Security number. Contracts must clearly and conspicuously require customers to acknowledge military service and direct them, in type no smaller than 20 points, to a Military Notice that the United States approves, a notice existing customers were also to be sent within ten days (paragraphs 9 to 11). Before enforcing a lien by auction, staff must search the DMDC database, and a search returning multiple matches requires a review of the customer's file and any military paperwork (paragraph 12).

Why this case matters

Section 3958 does not ask when the debt started. The repossession and foreclosure sections protect obligations taken on before service; the storage lien section bars enforcing any lien on a servicemember's property without a court order while the servicemember is in military service or within 90 days after it ends. The Staff Sergeant at the center of this case rented her unit while already on active duty, and the sale still needed a court order. Her account carries a second lesson: a change of operator can quietly switch off automatic payments, so a deployed renter should confirm the new owner has a working payment method and the agent's contact details.