Proceedings continued Friday in Washtenaw County Circuit Court for a wrongful termination suit levied against the University’s Board of Regents by a former graduate student at the University.

Robert McGee, 54, claims he was fired from his job as a research assistant for reporting safety violations on the part of his supervising professor in February 2008.

Michael Hartman, the supervising professor who is also a professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences, was questioned by attorneys for both parties today for more than five hours. On the witness stand, he tried to discredit McGee’s claims by telling the seven jurors that McGee was lackadaisical in both his graduate studies and research responsibilities.

McGee testified on Tuesday that on Feb. 16, 2008, Hartman, in ignoring access restrictions on a lab adjacent to his and insisting on entering without proper equipment, put him at risk of exposure to a highly-radioactive isotope. That same day, McGee claims, Hartman violated safety rules by dumping chemicals down a laboratory sink.

McGee sent an e-mail reporting his exposure to the radiation to the University’s Radiation Safety Service on Feb. 16, 2008. He was fired the next week.

Hartman said he had planned to dismiss McGee based on his job performance, suggesting that the timing of his firing — which occurred soon after McGee reported the lab safety violations on the part of Hartman — was coincidental.

McGee began working for Hartman when Hartman came to the University in July 2007 and became the director of the Neutron Science Lab.

McGee was in charge of completing the safety systems and shielding for a neutron generator in the lab. According to Hartman, McGee said he could have these projects done by Fall 2007.

“We had talked about what remained in terms of the shielding and safety systems and tried to develop a goal, or completion date if you will, for those activities,” Hartman said. “He informed me that he thought (it would be done) by the end of September, beginning of October. From what I saw of the facility, that didn’t seem to be an unreasonable estimate.”

Hartman said that he, not McGee, finished building the shielding for the neutron generator at the end of September 2007.

After the shielding was in place, Hartman said, he planned to test the neutron generator, but the lab could not be fully operational because the safety system had not yet been completed.

They ran the test on Oct. 19, 2007, but the generator did not work, according to Hartman. He said he later determined that the generator failed because of a wiring mix-up.

Earlier that week, Hartman said, he asked McGee to take a preliminary look at the generator to prepare it for the test. McGee failed to do so, he said.

According to Hartman, McGee informed him the next day that he had examinations at the end of the month and wanted to work fewer hours in order to study.

Hartman said he responded by saying he wanted the generator and the lab to be operational by the end of the month.

McGee believed this to be impossible, Hartman said.

In court today, Hartman read from McGee’s e-mail response, which had been submitted to the court as evidence.

“I will not be able to build a security system in your time frame,” McGee wrote on Oct. 24. “With all do respect, I feel that your 31 October deadline is not realistic due to the complexity of this project .”

Although McGee’s exams were on Oct. 30 and Nov. 1, he did not return to work in the lab until Nov. 7, according to Hartman. The safety system and other projects that McGee was working on remained unfinished throughout the month of November.

On December 4, 2007 Hartman e-mailed McGee a list of tasks that he wanted done by the end of the year, including the completion of the safety system.