“Our client learned that the packages were dumped at an unidentified landfill somewhere in or around Nashville, Tennessee,” the lawsuit alleges.
A professor has filed a lawsuit against New Jersey-based William Paterson University, claiming that the school’s failure to pay past-due bills led to a collection of 380-million-year-old fossils being dumped in a Tennessee landfill.
According to NBC News, the lawsuit was filed on behalf of plaintiff Martin Becker, a paleontologist and professor of environmental science at William Paterson University. Becker had planned to collaborate with a colleague in Florida on a monograph featuring his fossil collection.
In total, Becker estimates that he spent “hundreds upon hundreds of hours” collecting Devonian-age marine invertebrate fossils from the High Mountain area of Wayne, New Jersey.
After becoming preoccupied with other work, Becker decided to send the fossil specimens to his colleague, a professor employed at a Florida university.
On June 18, 2024, Becker packed about 200 fossils into 19 separate boxes, constituting roughly 80% of his total collection. Each of the packages weighed between 20 and 60 pounds. They were taken to William Paterson University’s mailroom later the same day and given to mailroom supervisor Raymond Boone, a co-defendant in the lawsuit.
UPS picked Becker’s package up the same day; Boone, meanwhile, told Becker that the mailroom would forward his tracking and insurance information.
Becker never received a tracking number—and, weeks later, received a call from his colleague telling him that the fossils had never arrived.
Over the course of the next month, Becker repeatedly contacted Boone about the packages. On at least three separate occasions, Boone told him that the packages were safe and that he was actively “working on the issue.”
At the end of September, Becker contacted UPS directly—and was told that his packages had been intercepted because William Paterson University had failed to pay a number of outstanding invoices. Consequently, the school’s account was canceled outright.
“Our client learned that the packages were dumped at an unidentified landfill somewhere in or around Nashville, Tennessee,” the lawsuit alleges.
Becker is seeking unspecified damages for medical expenses related to emotional distress as well as compensation for the loss of the collection.
“The fossil assemblage was an integral part of plaintiff’s life and all aspects of his career, and was a critical factor in plaintiff’s good name and stupendous reputation at William Paterson and the fields of paleontology and geology,” the lawsuit states.
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