380 Million-Year-Old Fossils End Up in Landfill Due to University Negligence, Professor Claims: Complaint

A college professor in New Jersey claims that his 380 million-year-old fossils ended up in a landfill due to negligence from his university, per a civil complaint.

Martin Becker, a professor in the Department of Environmental Science at William Paterson University, allegedly spent “hundreds upon hundreds of hours” from his 18-year career collecting the Devonian Age marine invertebrate fossils that were lost, a civil suit filed in Passaic County’s Superior Court and obtained by PEOPLE explains.

The fossils “were transported in glacier boulders over a period of several million years during Earth’s last glaciation” and ended up in the High Mountain area of Wayne, N.J.

According to the lawsuit, Becker and a colleague had recently decided to collaborate on a “comprehensive monograph” featuring the fossil’s assemblage. Because of this, Becker sent approximately 80% of his collection to his unidentified colleague in Florida.

On or about June 18, 2024, Becker packaged the fossils into 19 packages, each weighing about 20 to 60 pounds, and handed them over to Raymond Boone, a university mailroom supervisor who was named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

After the packages had not arrived in Florida by August, Becker allegedly attempted to get a hold of Boone and was given a tracking number on Aug. 16, which said the packages were in Parsippany awaiting delivery.

When they didn’t arrive by Aug. 30, Becker claims he reached out to Boone again, who said he was “working on the issue.” He claims to have followed up again on Sept. 12 and Sept. 19, during which he was provided “the same response.”

After being told that the fossil packages were possibly in the UPS fraud department during a Sept. 20 reach out to Boone, Becker decided to contact UPS directly on Sept. 30, the lawsuit claims.

Per the complaint, it was then that Becker was allegedly told for the first time that the packages were confiscated because William Paterson University had “failed to pay invoices from UPS and William Paterson’s account with UPS had been canceled as a result of said nonpayment.”

“Our client learned that the packages were dumped at an unidentified landfill somewhere in or around Nashville, Tennessee,” the lawsuit claims, further alleging that the university’s account with UPS had been canceled as of April 2024 and that Boone knew about the cancellation since July 8, 2024.

The lawsuit claims Becker has “suffered damages and has incurred medical expenses due to emotional distress resulting from the destruction of his life’s work.” The amount of compensatory damages he is seeking was not disclosed.