More than 20 years of research was ruined at an upstate New York university after the school said a janitor shut off a freezer that was setting off “annoying alarms”, court records show.
The lawsuit filed by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, against Daigle Cleaning Systems Inc. — an Albany-based company that worked at the private research university for several months in 2020 — seeks more than $1 million in damages and legal fees. The freezer contained specimens related to Rensselaer Professor Dr. K.V. Lakshmi’s “high level research” that had “the potential to be groundbreaking,” stated the lawsuit, which was reviewed by USA TODAY.
The school claims that the janitor caused “catastrophic damage” on Sept. 17, 2020, after he turned off a lab freezer storing cell cultures and samples, which are sensitive to small temperature fluctuations. The college, which is not suing the janitor, faults Daigle Cleaning Systems for failing to properly train and supervise him, according to the suit.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, one of the oldest engineering schools in the country, claims that a small increase or decrease of from the temperature needed to maintain specimens and cell cultures causes the alarm to sound. The cultures must stay between minus -115.6 and minus-108.4 degrees Fahrenheit to avoid damage.
Professors of the school’s Baruch ’60 Center for Biochemical Solar Energy Research who oversaw the freezer noticed the alarm three days earlier and posted a warning until the manufacturer could come perform emergency repairs, according to the lawsuit filed with the Rensselaer County Supreme Court.
To try to ensure electricity kept flowing to the freezer, they also added a safety lock box around the freezer’s outlet and socket, the filing states.
“THIS FREEZER IS BEEPING AS IT IS UNDER REPAIR. PLEASE DO NOT MOVE OR UNPLUG IT. NO CLEANING REQUIRED IN THIS AREA. YOU CAN PRESS THE ALARM/TEST MUTE BUTTON FOR 5-10 SECONDS IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO MUTE THE SOUND,” the warning on the freezer read, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit states that researchers determined cell samples would be safe in the freezer until repairs could be done. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the freezer could not be serviced until Sept. 21, the lawsuit states.
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To quell what the janitor later called “annoying alarms”, he admitted during an interview with the university officials that he flipped the circuit breakers that provide electricity to the freezer from “on” to “off” in an apparent attempt to help, according to the lawsuit.
“(The janitor) understood that he had no authority to look inside the panel or touch the breakers but again maintained he was trying to help,” the incident report states.
The next day, research students found the freezer’s temperature had increased to to minus-25.6 degrees. Despite efforts to preserve the “compromised” cultures, a majority of them were destroyed and rendered “unsalvageable” — effectively “demolishing more than twenty years of research,” the lawsuit states.
The janitor told the university that he misread the panel and believed he was turning on “important breakers” that “were turned off,” the suit alleges.
The defendant is required to answer the complaint within 30 days after the service of the summons, which was filed on June 16.
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