Screened cases - Author legal actions against journals and publishers for retractions and corrections

On 21 August 2026, after several pilot runs, we performed our final “advanced search” of all US federal and state case databases on Westlaw Classic. This search, which we received feedback on from a research librarian at the University of Aberdeen, was calibrated to search for terms related to expressions of concern and retractions in relation to the five largest academic publishers, being Elsevier, Sage, Taylor & Francis, Springer Nature, and Wiley (see our Conclusion for limitations related to this search strategy). The five searches are as follows: • (retract! OR "expression #of concern" OR correction OR erratum) & TI(Elsevier OR "Elsevier Inc" OR "Elsevier B.V." OR "Reed Elsevier" OR RELX)• (retract! OR "expression #of concern" OR correction OR erratum) & TI(Springer Nature)• (retract! OR "expression #of concern" OR correction OR erratum) & TI(Sage)• (retract! OR "expression #of concern" OR correction OR erratum) & TI(Taylor & Francis)• (retract! OR "expression #of concern" OR correction OR erratum) & TI(Wiley)Note that the TI term restricts the search to the parties and the case’s style of cause.