Lynn Hlatky, PhD, on Tuesday won a preliminary victory over Boston-based Steward Health Care in Suffolk Superior Court, where she is seeking $35 million in damages for the destruction of her cancer research lab in 2014, according to the Boston Globe.
The jury ruled on Tuesday that Steward breached its contract with Dr. Hlatky when it ceased funding her research after spinning off her lab, according to the report. The case will continue, and if she wins Dr. Hlatky plans to use money earned from damages to continue her research.
Steward and its lawyers did not provide a comment on the verdict.
Dr. Hlatky was conducting research on cancer prevention in her lab at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Brighton, Mass., when the hospital was part of former Caritas Christi Health Care. Steward acquired St. Elizabeth's in 2010, then spun off Dr. Hlatky's lab in 2013 to Genesys Research Institute, a nonprofit biotechnology firm based in Boston. In the wake of serious financial problems, Genesys closed the lab in September 2014 before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to the report.
Dr. Hlatky tried to save her research in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, but her lab was ultimately liquidated. The equipment was sold at an auction and the thousands of containers containing cells, proteins and other biological research matter were incinerated, according to the report. She sued Genesys and Steward, alleging the health system violated her employment contract by ceasing to provide "sufficient support" for her research, according to the report.
"Dr. Hlatky may be a brilliant scientist, but her version of the events just isn't grounded in reality," Allison O'Neil, Steward's attorney, said in court Tuesday, according to the transcript cited by the Boston Globe.