Penn microbiologist wins damages

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ordered the University of Pennsylvania (U. Penn) to pay a researcher $3 million for shutting down his laboratory after two committees absolved him of scientific misconduct.Sanctions imposed in 1991 by then-dean of Penn's veterinary medicine school, Edwin Andrews, had a "devastating" effect on microbiologist Jorge Ferrer's leukemia research, high court Chief Justice Stephen A. Zappala wrote in a 36-page opinion issued December 30."We are disappointed with the decision of the Supreme Court," Penn spokeswoman Phyllis M. Holtzman told The Scientist, but declined to comment further about the case.Ferrer, who is still on the faculty at Penn's veterinary school, did not return calls for comment on the ruling. The school had appealed a 1998 decision by a Philadelphia jury to award the tenured professor $5 million.Though the high court kept Penn on the hook for breaching Ferrer's employment contract, it cut the damages to $2.9 million, the number that Ferrer's own expert established as the upper limit of financial harm. Ferrer will also collect more than 10 years' worth of pre-judgment interest on the damages, which began in 1991, when Penn first punished the researcher.Penn sanctioned Ferrer after children touring the New Bolton Center, Penn's 600-acre farm, were allowed to pet lambs inoculated with human leukemia virus and destined for use in cancer research.Penn, not the researcher, was to blame for the problem, the high court found. Contrary to procedure, nobody at Penn asked Ferrer's permission before letting the children pet the infected lambs. Further, Ferrer never authorized invasive procedures that veterinary students performed on the lambs he was using as animal models for the study of human disease.Those procedures tainted the results of Ferrer's research, an attempt to develop an animal model for the for the human leukemia virus, which is similar to the leukemia that afflicts cattle.Yet Ferrer's research was effectively brought to an end, his staff disbanded and his special herd sold off, as a result of punishments imposed on the researcher who was twice investigated for alleged research misconduct and twice found not guilty, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said.Ferrer first faced a formal probe conducted under the school's procedures governing misconduct in research. That panel found him not guilty of misconduct and blamed bad communication among university departments for the errors. But Dean Andrews disregarded the committee finding and punished Ferrer anyway.The scientist was barred from conducting his research for two years, his laboratory was put under intense supervision and his funders were told that Ferrer had made "serious errors" in judgment, according to court testimony.The researcher complained to a faculty committee, which conducted another investigation and recommended the sanctions be removed. The panel also advised the university to help Ferrer keep his lab operating so he could continue to pursue funding. The school rejected the advice.Ferrer argued in court that the university procedures for investigating scientific misconduct were part of his employment agreement. The dean's decision to ignore the not-guilty finding breached that agreement, the court found.Penn won on the first level of appeal, arguing that since Ferrer never lost his job, he was not damaged. A mid-level court said the researcher had no right to make Penn pay for funding he might have been able to land if his research had not been stopped.But the Supreme Court said it was appropriate to make Penn pay for damage done to Ferrer. "He sought to recover damages sustained by the university's actions that halted his ability to perform his scientific research, as the university's breach resulted in the complete dismantling and destruction of his research program," Zappala wrote.

Penn microbiologist wins damages

University, not researcher, faulted by court in misconduct case.

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