He has ancient bones.
The professor is suing the University of New Jersey after a collection of 380 million-year-old fossils has been reportedly ruining more than 18 years of work, as it has become a Nashville landfill.
Martin Becker, a professor of environmental science and paleontologist at William Patterson University in Wayne, accused UPS of negligence of failing to pay any unpaid fees. NBC News Report.
Instead, this mistake caused Becker's life work to be thrown out at a dump in Tennessee, where paleontologists overturned “hundreds of hours,” gathering rare ancient fossils from the Paleozoic Devon era in High Mountain, New Jersey.
“The plaintiff's fossil collection is the most unique and comprehensive collection of marine fossils ever reported in northern New Jersey,” the lawsuit states.
“The fossil population was an integral part of the plaintiff's life and all aspects of his career and was a key factor in the plaintiff's good name and surprising reputation in the field of William Patterson and paleontology and geology,” he added.
Becker's nightmare began on June 18, 2024, packing 19 fossile collections into 19 separate boxes, sent from the university's email room to a Florida colleague for a collaborative project.
The package was handed over to email room supervisor Raymond Boone, according to the lawsuit. Raymond Boone was appointed as a defendant in the suit and defendant in the suit.
Boone reportedly told Becker he would receive tracking and insurance information from UPS, but Becker says he never received the document.
When the professor learned that the fossil had not arrived in Florida, he made multiple calls to the mailroom and finally received tracking information on August 20th.
The package reportedly indicates it is still in New Jersey, and Becker said he repeatedly contacted Boone to resolve an issue that has stopped deliveries.
According to the lawsuit, by September 20, Boone told Becker that the fossils could have been lifted by the UPS fraud division.
Becker contacted UPS directly 10 days later to find out that his package was intercepted as his university account was cancelled for failing to pay an unpaid bill, the lawsuit states.
The school's account had already been cancelled on April 24th and Boone knew what had happened by July 8th despite telling Becker that he was “working on the issue,” according to the lawsuit.
Becker violates their duty of care for the fossils by accusing the school and Boone of negligence, failing to pay UPS bills and shipping his packages before the matter was resolved.
Becker also argues that Boone is not suitable for a mail-room job, and that William Patterson was negligent in hiring him.
According to the lawsuit, Becker seeks unspecified damages for his lost collection and medical expenses for the pain that the entire ordeal caused him.
Boone and William Patterson University did not immediately respond to requests to post comments.
