David Hester, a participant in the first three seasons of “Storage Wars,” A&E’s popular show about people who buy storage units, filed a lawsuit against the network back in December alleging that the company “salts” storage units — fills them up with interesting and valuable things, like a newspaper from the time of Elvis’s death — as well as other untoward, totally familiar reality TV tricks, like filming scripted interviews, setting up phony footage, and denying via press release that any such behaviors are going down. Hester further alleged that his refusal to salt his own lockers has made him look less competent than his colleagues and forced him to close his storefronts, and then when he complained about some of these practices he was wrongfully terminated. (A&E has countered that Hester is trying “to convert a garden-variety breach of contract claim into a tabloid-worthy drama, in which Hester portrays himself as a crusading whistleblower.")

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