Here's an authorship question that just arose with my journal. Any suggestions about how to deal with it?

I was just contacted by the research director in a department at a prominent US university regarding a single-author paper we published in Family Medicine about 2 years ago.

The research director tells me that a second individual has challenged the article's author for not including him (ie, the challenger) as a co-author. The challenger feels his contributions warranted inclusion as co-author, and that the article's author did him a professional disservice by completing this paper, submitting it, and publishing it without his name. This challenge arose at a departmental level shortly after the paper was published, and could not be resolved quickly or amicably. It has dragged on with long periods of inactivity. The challenger is now at another institution but still wants to see a resolution to this issue. Legal activity between the authors and challenger is now underway regarding this issue.

This problem has just been brought to my attention by the research director. Since the time of publication, I've had no contact with the author or the challenger.

I wondered if any else has with a similar situation, and how things were resolved.

Thanks for your help.

Barry D Weiss
Editor, Family Medicine

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Not that I can recall. However, I would certainly write to the author and give copies of your correspondence, requesting a reply (send by certified mail). I would give a time limit and, if no response, you would have the option to provide the information in your journal under your byline without prejudice. If there is a response you could publish both with your own comment.

John Bennett
University of Rochester

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I have not heard of a similar precedent. However, intuitively it sounds like the FM Journal performed its duty by reviewing the submitted article and publishing it. You cannot know about disputed authorship when you receive an article. Although the journal was the vehicle that brought the problem to light, it is not directly involved in this dispute. It is truly sad that these two have come to legal blows over this, but I would not suggest the journal get involved in any way—let the courts or the individuals' consciences decide this one.

John Ross
Associate Editor, CJEM

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Glad they didn't submit their work to JFP! ;-) It seems to me that at this point you have to let it play out in the courts, since there is no way to know who is in the right.

Mark Ebell
Editor, The Journal of Family Practice

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I have had no experience with this (as of yet—and I hope never), but there seems to be a basis for the decision that usually one should be able to define the contributions to the work in question and the article produced by potential authors. It is a shame that it would come to a legal stage for something like this—I won't comment on what that says about the parties involved or the system in which they work that would result in such a situation. It may be that since it has gone the "legal route," all you could do is offer to review the purported contributions of each author and, based on usual standards of authorship, decide whether the proposed second author has a point and offer to mediate a resolution. If they refuse, then they can go the legal route, spend a lot of money, exhaust their academic credibility, etc. and still be angry and dissatisfied at the end.

Michael Gordon

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I am not surprised by the lawsuit.

There are so many issues related to inappropriate authorship and none of them are settled at this point. As we all know authorship is a very valuable piece of intellectual property; no wonder people are willing to go to court over it. And since nobody enforces the authorship regulations of the ICMJE, the courts are then the only place to raise a complaint.

I am curious—what exactly does the complaint say, and is the name of the lawyer public information?

Eugen Tarnow
Avalon Business Systems

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Dear Dr. Weiss,
The bad news is that authorship disputes are particularly hard to resolve, and the Office of Research Integrity will not get involved as around 1993 they conveniently decreed such disputes, which tended to be grouped under the heading of plagiarism, to be outside their territory and to be the province of the research institutions. The good news is that, however any other such problem has played out in the past, this particular problem is not yours to sort out, though you may later be involved in the resolution.

Editors don't have the mandate, the power, the skill, the standing, or the time to go into institutions, hold investigations as to the facts, reach findings, and exact penalties, if any. All you can do is act as a witness, providing evidence, if asked, to the properly-constituted university panels who have the mandate, power etc. You can also encourage the institutions to work towards resolution.

You may be asked to publish some sort of notice down the line, which might, for example, add the challenger's name retrospectively as a co-author, and you may be asked to inform Medline etc.

A major problem, for them, not you, is that they've gone legal (a great deal more damaging than going postal, but just as crazy and infinitely more expensive). The courts will no doubt impose some sort of settlement or judgment. You'll be deposed, and may be ordered, rather than asked, to print some sort of notice.

I hope this helps,
Best regards,
Drummond Rennie

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This seems an interesting variation on gratuitous inclusion and the 18 author paper.

Rick Nelson

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Luckily I haven't any experience in this topic. But it is may be a typical problem of GPs to want to solve every problem. Why is this the responsibility of an editor? Two guys (I think that women don't do such things...) fighting their big egos; you can't stop them and you can't control every single statement about authorship. So, wait and see till the court has finally reached a verdict.

You don't want to solve all the problems of your patients, so don't resolve problems of fighting authors.

The whole problem is a sign of a terrible distorted atmosphere in the research group. One of the benefits of being an editor in a small country (despise all the other problems) is that you hear more gossip and know more research groups. Sometimes you can smell the nasty things before publication.

Joost Zaat
Editor, Huisarts en Wetenschap

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Dear Dr. Weiss,
I suggest you do three things:

1. Search your files to be sure that the complainant was not originally listed as an author of the paper. If the person's name was there initially, and was later removed by the corresponding author, obviously without the other person's approval, then the corresponding author has unequivocally misbehaved. (It has happened!) You should then confirm the facts, inform all parties, and note the inappropriate deletion of an author by the corresponding author in print in your journal.
2. Assuming the file does not have a smoking gun, thank the department person for informing you about the dispute, and then tell him that you want to be informed of the outcome, and that you will publish a correction should it be decided that the complainant should have been an author. In doing these things, you should remind him that whatever the court does it is the institution's good name that is floating in the breeze. Institutions tend to want to hide issues like this under the rug, or in this instance say it is now out of their hands. Still, the corresponding author represents the institution, and institutional officials may need reminding that they are—or should be—as interested in promoting integrity of authorship and other publication matters as are editors.
3. Send copies of your letter to the department person to both the corresponding author and the complainant. They need to know that you know there is a dispute.

Finally, had you received the complaint first, it really was not yours to resolve, but rather belonged in the hands of the institution, again with the proviso that you must be informed of the outcome.

Robert Utiger

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What About the Guidelines?
I am not a little bothered about the complete absence of any mention of the ICMJE guidelines for authorship when it comes to the case mentioned by Dr. Barry Weiss.

Either the guidelines mean something and the university should be getting a copy of those guidelines from Dr. Weiss, or they don't in which case they should be removed and be asked to RIP!

Anything else seems dishonest to me. Am I wrong?

Eugen Tarnow
Avalon Business Systems

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Don't be too bothered.

Several respondents suggested that I send the guidelines to the institution that contacted me, and I plan to do so.

Barry D Weiss

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Many editors (and even more authors and researchers) feel those guidelines are very unrealistic. They were formulated by a small number of medical editors, and were not developed with major input from authors and researchers (as far as I know). Discussion at meetings, and published studies, document the following: Most researchers aren't even aware of them, and don't agree with them when they are aware. They are more representative of traditional researcher/author roles 30 years ago than of the current day. Many authors in prestigious journals do not fit their criteria. The growing adoption of the contributor model of authorship demonstrates the widespread dissatisfaction with them. I do not think they are an accepted standard.

Michael Callaham

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Dear all,
I read this problem a bit late since I was very busy, but this gave me an opportunity to sum up the answers given: Out of 8 who commented on the issue, the majority (6) believed that the dispute is now beyond the responsibility and/or capabilities of the journal. This is partly true, but I would like to point out the fact that editors must not allow legal courts to interfere with authorship matters which basically have an academic nature rather than legal. Dr Rennie has put it very well: "The courts will no doubt impose some sort of settlement or judgment. You'll be deposed, and may be ordered, rather than asked, to print some sort of notice." And authors and editors must avoid being "ordered" by courts in such matters. What Michel Gordon has said is also nice: "all you could do is offer to review the purported contributions of each author and based on usual standards of authorship decide whether the proposed second author has a point or not and offer to mediate a resolution. If they refuse then they can go the legal route, spend a lot of money, exhaust their academic credibility etc. and still be angry and dissatisfied at the end."

I feel that whatever happens it is OUR responsibility as guardians of integrity of medical literature to solve such disputes and not let outsiders get involved.

A. Etemady, MD
Managing Editor, Iranian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism

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Interesting correspondence from the WAME listserve regarding the authorship dispute. I think the most appropriate action at this point is to do nothing, except let the research director know that Fam Med would publish an errata if the ongoing arbitration agreement contained an acknowledgment that an author was omitted. Of course the omitted "author" could always submit a letter to the editor making his case (assuming the arbitration settlement did not prohibit this!).

Editors should be aware that errata are indexed by MEDLINE and tagged to the original article citation only if the erratum is labeled as such and appears on a numbered page of the journal. (A letter to the editor or an editorial that might report an official finding of scientific misconduct is not indexed as an erratum/retraction).

Some journals have policies about how and when errata and retractions are issued. In some cases journals have policies that permit only an author to retract an article. This has had some strange effects like where an official investigation names an article as containing falsified data, but the author doesn't retract it, and the journal policy only allows authors to retract! (see Cooper-Mahkorn D. Many journals have not retracted "fraudulent" research. BMJ. 1998;316:1850. bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/316/7148/1850/a) The dispute at hand doesn't sound like a case for retraction, but journals may want to consider developing policies related to these areas of authorship disputes and misconduct, and withdrawal of journal aegis.

Victoria Neale, PhD, MPH
Feature Editor, Family Medicine

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