Prof claims UPS tossed 200 priceless fossils in landfill over unpaid bill
Martin Becker is a professor of environmental science and paleontology. The fossils of ancient marine life—some of which are 380 million years old—that he dug up with his own hands represent his life’s work. And according to a lawsuit, UPS dumped those fossils in a landfill because his university didn’t pay its bills.
“My research is based on self-collected fossil assemblages discovered across the United States and focuses primarily on evolutionary relationships of chondrichthyans, osteichthyans and reptiles.”
—Professor Martin Becker
How million-year-old fossils ended their journey in a landfill
According to Becker, he was collaborating with another professor in Florida, and this colleague needed to study his fossil collection. So Becker decided to ship the fossils to Florida for the summer break. On June 18, he brought 19 carefully packed boxes to the university mailroom. Each weighed 20 to 60 pounds and contained 200 fossils—or about 80% of his collection. So we’re not talking about some letter-sized envelope you can accidentally misplace.
Mailroom supervisor Raymond Boone took the packages and promised Becker tracking and insurance information. Boone never contacted Becker, so when the colleague never got the fossils, Becker called the mailroom repeatedly.
When Becker finally got a tracking number, UPS told him the packages had never left New Jersey. Meanwhile, Boone promised he was “working on the issue.”
The school year had started up again before Boone admitted that UPS was holding the packages, saying they were with the fraud department. That’s when Becker began calling UPS. The company explained that William Paterson University hadn’t been paying its bills and its UPS account had been canceled—a month before Becker even walked into the mailroom.
“Our client learned that the packages were dumped at an unidentified landfill somewhere in or around Nashville, Tennessee.”
Did Boone know? Was there more the university could have done? We’ll have to wait for Professor Becker’s court case to wrap up to find out.
