A researcher who sued the publisher PLOS to prevent it from posting an expression of concern for one of her papers has dropped her suit, and the publisher tells us it will add a correction to the article instead – but may “revisit this case” to deal with “unresolved issues.”
We’ve previously reported on the lawsuit Soudamani Singh, an assistant professor in the Department of Clinical and Translational Sciences at Marshall University’s Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine in Huntington, W. Va., filed against PLOS in April, as well as signs of a pending settlement.
According to an order filed November 2, Singh informed the court that she “voluntarily dismisses” the claims in her complaint, without the possibility of re-filing them, and the judge dismissed the case.
In her complaint, Singh alleged that PLOS planned to place an expression of concern on one of her papers, “Cyclooxygenase pathway mediates the inhibition of Na-glutamine co-transporter B0AT1 in rabbit villus cells during chronic intestinal inflammation,” published in PLOS ONE in September 2018, after she and her co-authors had requested a correction of a duplicated image. The paper has been cited nine times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, but not since April 2021.
A comment left last June 14 on one of our posts had identified a duplicated image in the paper, but the corresponding author told us he and his coauthors had noticed the “accidental error” independently and asked the journal for a correction. PLOS spokesperson David Knutson previously told us the authors contacted the publisher on June 17.
Singh argued an expression of concern on the paper would imply “a certain level of intentional misconduct (i.e. plagiarism, falsifying data, etc.) or that something otherwise nefarious has occurred with an article,” and would be inappropriate.
PLOS’s guidelines for publishing expressions of concern do not mention misconduct, but state they are “notices published at editors’ discretion to alert readers of serious concerns about published work or an article’s compliance with PLOS policies (e.g. Data Availability).”
Singh asked for a temporary restraining order and permanent injunction to stop PLOS from publishing the expression of concern, as well as damages and legal fees. Her lawyer did not respond to our request for comment on the resolution of the case.
Knutson told us PLOS could not disclose terms of the settlement without Singh’s consent due to a confidentiality agreement. But he did tell us the publisher would add a correction to the article, “which achieves our editorial objective of providing key updates to the article’s readers.” He explained:
We initially considered an Expression of Concern for this case due to unresolved concerns. After careful consideration we decided that there is sufficient support for the article’s results to allow us to publish a Correction at this time, even though some data concerns have not yet been resolved (as is described in the forthcoming Correction). It is unclear if the data concerns can be resolved and/or how long this would require; with this Correction decision, we prioritized timely resolution of the current case and transparent disclosure of the resolved and unresolved issues to readers. That said, we may revisit this case in the future depending on what comes of the pending data concern issue.
As a side note, PLOS has a policy and process in place by which our Publication Ethics team handles appeals of post-publication decisions. It is not necessary to involve legal representatives: authors’ appeals are considered as long as they are submitted in accordance with our policy, and filing a lawsuit only tends to delay case resolution and detract vital resources from other work.
In a previous case, diabetes researcher Mario Saad sued a journal publisher to block expressions of concern on his work, but a U.S. federal judge denied the request for a restraining order and injunction because, as one legal commentator explained, the First Amendment does not allow courts to prohibit speech ahead of time. Saad, who is now up to 19 retractions, recently had four more expressions of concern from the same journal.
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One positive thing came out of this suit: an additional concern on a paper with a common author has now been raised.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/39C7C05AE8C0572506215863DB6E60
Very strange repeats in the images as shown inside the colored squares. I wonder how those were detected. It would be great if an AI could scan images to discover repeated patterns that humans would almost always fail to notice.
And another: https://pubpeer.com/publications/7E5C68EDEEB67403AD318CEBD63C54
Two Words: Mandatory Arbitration. If after this debacle PLOS doesn’t put a mandatory arbitration clause into their author agreements they’re nuts for sure. And other publishers would be wise to do the same in this litigious world we live in. Just cut off the lawsuits before they begin. Otherwise, what good is it to have a publishing policy if an unqualified judge will simply override your decision(s) when an author has a temper tantrum and sues.
Very good iniciative.
To me this sounds like Singh volunteered for a Streisand effect: this was a paper that had been cited just 9 times and essentially nobody would have paid attention to its EOC, while she is now on the front page of Retraction Watch and dozens of people must be scanning her other papers for problems, which they’ll probably find.
I’m sure that lawsuit threat will do wonders for the willingness of publishers/journals to consider Ms. Singh’s work in the future.