The namesake of the Field Museum's dinosaur Sue was staying in a Miami hotel, which the suit says mishandled her shipment of conch pearls.
By Associated Press
Published January 10, 2004
MIAMI - A paleontologist credited with discovering the most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil ever found - her namesake, Tyrannosaurus Sue - is suing a Miami hotel over a shipment of rare conch pearls she had delivered to the hotel for her.
The lawsuit said Susan Hendrickson, who discovered the dinosaur now known as Tyrannosaurus Sue in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1990, never received the package of pearls shipped to her while she stayed at the Baymont Inn and Suites near Miami International Airport on July 1-3, 2002.
Hendrickson, an explorer and diver, now lives in Honduras.
Hendrickson's Miami attorney, Jonathan Cohen, said Hendrickson sold conch pearls, produced by the saltwater mollusk found in tropical waters, to upscale jewelers, such as Mikimoto and Cartier.
John Lotenero, a spokesman at Chicago's Field Museum, where Tyrannosaurus Sue is permanently housed, said Hendrickson also contributed to a pearl exhibit the museum ran in late 2002 and early 2003.
Cohen said Hendrickson had paid $97,400 for the missing pearls in the Dominican Republic, and expected to make $633,100 from them.
According to the lawsuit, the hotel received the package two days before her arrival.
Cohen said Hendrickson was a regular guest at the airport hotel when flying to or from Latin America and had received shipments there in the past.
The lawsuit said this time the hotel never told her about the package and told her it was gone when she demanded its return after she checked out.
"I assume the pearls are long gone," said Cohen. "It's possible the people who took (the package) didn't even know what they had, and probably didn't know what to do with it."
The hotel filed a claim with its insurance company when Hendrickson demanded $633,100, but Cohen said in March 2003, Gallagher Bassett Services Inc. of Maryland Heights, Mo., denied the claim.
This led to Hendrickson's Circuit Court suit.
"She waited patiently until she got this denial letter in March," Cohen said. "She's asking for the value of the pearls."
Messages left at the hotel, its parent company Baymont Inn and Suites, and the insurance company were not returned on Friday.
