380-million-year-old fossils dumped in landfill after New Jersey college didn’t pay UPS bill, lawsuit claims

A professor filed a lawsuit against a New Jersey university claiming the school’s negligence led to 380-million-year-old fossils ending up in a Nashville landfill last year.

Martin Becker, professor of environment science and paleontologist at William Paterson University, had planned to collaborate with a colleague on a comprehensive monograph featuring his fossil collection, according to the civil suit filed last week in Superior Court in Passaic County.

Becker spent “hundreds upon hundreds of hours” collecting the Devonian age marine invertebrate fossils from the High Mountain area of Wayne, New Jersey, the suit said. 

Becker needed to send the priceless collection to his colleague in Florida to move forward with the project, the lawsuit said.

On June 18, 2024, Becker packaged about 200 fossils into 19 separate boxes, which was about 80% of his collection. Each package weighed between 20 to 60 pounds, the suit said. The fossils were brought to the WPU mailroom that same day and given to mailroom supervisor Raymond Boone, who is also named as a defendant in the case.

The packages were picked up by United Parcel Service (UPS) on June 18. Becker was told by Boone that he would receive tracking and insurance information, but Becker claims he never received it, according to the lawsuit.

In the following weeks, the suit said Becker’s colleague in Florida informed him that the fossils had never arrived.

Becker said he received tracking information on August 20 after making two phone calls to the mailroom to speak with Boone, the lawsuit said. Tracking information indicated that the packages were in Parsippany, New Jersey, awaiting delivery.

Becker would repeatedly contact Boone over the course of a month regarding the packages, the suit said, and Boone assured him on three separate occasions that he was “working on the issue.”

On Sept. 20, Boone advised Becker that the fossil packages were possibly being held at the UPS fraud department, according to the lawsuit. Becker contacted UPS directly on Sept. 30 and was informed that his packages were intercepted because WPU failed to pay outstanding invoices. As a result, the university’s account had been canceled.

“Our client learned that the packages were dumped at an unidentified landfill somewhere in or around Nashville, Tennessee,” the suit states.

WPU’s account with UPS was canceled on April 24. The suit claims Boone had been aware of this since July 8 and alleges several other packages from other individuals had also been confiscated for the same reason.

Becker is seeking unspecified damages for the irreplaceable collection, plus medical expenses for the emotional distress the ordeal has caused him, the suit said.

Boone declined to comment to NBC News. Becker and William Paterson University did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment.