By Dr. Bob Uttl (May 10, 2024)
However, what happened in this case went well beyond collaboration, consultation, wordsmithing or editing. It was word-for-word copying of a technical expert’s opinions and conclusions on key issues before this Court, all done without any attribution. It is plagiarism pure and simple. Plagiarism is wrong whether it is intentional or not
Justice Lafreniere, Rovi Guides, Inc. v. Bell Canada, 2022 FC 1388, para 107
On September 21, 2021, Dr. Mary Westcott authored an expert report, a reply to Dr. G’s report dated September 8, 2021 (Dr. Westcott’s Sep. 21, 2021 Report). In her report, Dr. Westcott for the first time put forward three ancient obsolete data sets to support her claim that “teachers do in fact typically require above average intelligence” and that Ms. T’s WAIS-IV CDN (2008) FSIQ of 86 measured while Ms. T was vomiting, anxious, etc. (WAIS-IV CDN (2008) FSIQ of 91 under more reasonable testing conditions) was “2 standard deviation below the average requirement for teachers.” (Dr. Westcott’s Sep 21, 2021 Expert Report, p. 5).
The three ancient data sets were:
- Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT) scores of 500 “teachers” translated to WAIS (1955) FSIQ scores. Wonderlic (1992) says nothing about these teachers except that their data were reported by 10 companies and that they were applicants for unspecified teaching jobs.
- General Classification Test (GCT) scores of 256 “teachers” in Hunter and Schmidt (2004) and originally reported by Harrell and Harrell (1945). Again, Hunter and Schmidt (2004) and Harrell and Harrell (1945) say nothing about these teachers except that they were US Army Air Force “enlisted White men” whose civilian occupation was “teacher”. They were tested sometimes during World War II, definitely prior to Harrel and Harrel publishing their data in 1945.
- Gottfredson’s “chart” that was based on Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT) scores (Wonderlic, 1992) translated to WAIS (1955) FSIQ scores.
Dr. Mary Westcott, Dr. J. Braxton Suffield and Dr. Allan Mandel used these three obsolete data sets as “norms” to make disparaging statements about Ms. T’s intelligence and cognitive abilities as detailed in Using outdated, obsolete, and irrelevant test data to make disparaging statements about a client’s IQ, intelligence and cognitive abilities: Minimally competent practice, unprofessional conduct, and/or malpractice?.
On December 7, 2022, Dr. Troy Janzen, Complaints Director and Deputy Registrar, College of Alberta Psychologists, provided a copy of the report regarding his investigation of Ms. T’s complaint against Dr. Allan Mandel to Ms. T. In this report, Dr. Janzen included a copy of Dr. Allan Mandel’s letter to the CAP/Dr. Mandel’s Response to Ms. T’s Complaint against him dated March 29, 2021.
One look at Dr. Mandel’s March 29, 2021 Letter to CAP and Dr. Westcott’s Sep 21, 2021 Expert Report makes it obvious that Dr. Westcott’s report contains verbatim identical text and three identical figures, cropped the same way from the original sources. The verbatim identical text and identical figures refer to the three ancient data sets detailed above and first appeared in Dr. Mandel’s March 29, 2021 Letter to CAP.
Who is Dr. Allan Mandel? Dr. Allan Mandel has been Dr. Marry Westcott’s employer and her boss. Dr. Mandel is also an owner and president of Mandel & Associates Ltd.
Side-by-side comparison of Dr. Westcott’s Sep 21, 2021 Expert Report to Dr. Mandel’s March 29, 2021 Letter
The table below shows the overlap between Dr. Mary Westcott’s Sep. 21, 2021 Expert Report and Dr. Allan Mandel’s March 29, 2021 Letter to the CAP. The print in bold shows text in Dr. Westcott’s Expert Report that is verbatim identical to the text that appeared approximately six months earlier in Dr. Mandel’s Letter to the CAP. The three figures appearing in Dr. Westcott’s Expert Report are identical to the three figures in Dr. Mandel’s Letter to the CAP, including identical cropping from the original sources.
Dr. Allan Mandel’s letter to the CAP (Mar 30, 2021) | Dr. Mary Westcott’s Expert Report (September 21, 2021) |
The table below, which is extracted from a book chapter by Gottfredson3, shows that on average teachers’ general cognitive ability is above average, equivalent to an IQ scores of 111 (77th percentile). The cognitive abilities required of teachers are similar to those of accountants, managers, and computer programmers. | The table below, which is extracted from a book chapter by Dr. Linda Gottfredson2, shows that on average teachers’ general cognitive ability is above average, estimated at the 81st percentile and equivalent to an IQ score of 113. The cognitive abilities required of teachers is similar to that of accountants, managers, computer programmers. |
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Beyond the data provided by Gottfredson, there is also empirical data about the intellectual abilities of teachers provided in a paper by Schmidt & Hunter4,, which is reproduced here. | Beyond the data provided by Gottfredson, there is also empirical data about the intellectual abilities of teachers provided in a paper by Schmidt & Hunter3,, which is reproduced here. |
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This data (N=256) shows that mean GMA for teachers (measured with military’s General Classification Test; meant to approximate GMA) was 122.8 (SD = 12.8), just below the scores for other professional occupations such as chemist, auditor, and engineer, and clearly above average. There was no distinction provided for elementary versus high school teachers. | The data (N=256) shows that mean intelligence for teachers (measured with the military’s General Classification Test) was 122.8 with a standard deviation of 12.8, just below the scores for other professional occupations such as chemist, auditor, and engineer, and clearly above average. |
In another publication by Gottfredson4, the following chart is presented. Note that teachers’ intellectual abilities are lumped with those of accountants and managers and clearly fall within the above average range (IQ 110 – 120). | In another publication by Gottfredson4, the following chart is presented. Note that teachers’ intellectual abilities are lumped with those of accountants and managers and clearly fall within the above average range (IQ 110 – 125); top 25% of the population). |
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Dr. Allan Mandel and Dr. Mary Westcott provided the same references for their three figures: Schmidt and Hunter (2004), Gottfredson (2003), and Gottfredson (1998).
Dr. Westcott’s Sep 21, 2021 Expert Report’s exposition of the three ancient data sets is nearly verbatim identical to what appeared six months earlier in Dr. Mandel’s March 29, 2021 Letter to the CAP. Moreover, Dr. Mandel and Westcott also cropped the figures extracted from the original sources the same way. For example, they cropped Schmidt and Hunter (2004) Table 1 exactly below “Photographer” and they cropped Gottfredson (1998) Figure exactly below “Total population distribution”. Dr. Mandel and Dr. Westcott also used the same three occupations (“Chemist”, “Auditor”, “Engineer”), in the same order, to compare Ms. T’s score to even though other occupations were closer to “Teacher” (e.g., “Chief clerk”, “Draftsman”) in Harrell and Harrel (1945) ancient data set.
Accordingly, it is nearly certain that Dr. Westcott plagiarized her Sep. 21, 2021 Expert Report from Dr. Mandel’s March 29, 2021 Letter to the CAP written some six months earlier. Alternative explanations appear extremely unlikely although they are not impossible. For example, according to Dr. Westcott’s counsel, Ms. Shayla Stein, Dr. Westcott consulted with Ms. Stein as well as with “counsel for SD5 regarding strategy for navigating the parallel human rights hearing and CAP complaints process…” and “SD5 assisted Dr. Westcott with drafting an affidavit [sworn by Dr. Westcott on October 13, 2021]…” (see Two independent “experts” — Dr. Mary Westcott and Dr. John Braxton Suffield — swore nearly verbatim identical testimony/affidavits: Who plagiarized their sworn testimony from whom?). Given this level of collaboration between Ms. Stein, the SD5 counsel, and SD5, it is not inconceivable that a similar level of collaboration among Ms. Stein, the SD5 counsel, and SD5 occurred in the preparation of Dr. Westcott’s Sep. 21, 2021 Expert Report. Critically, Ms. Shayla Stein was Dr. Allan Mandel’s counsel on March 29, 2021 already, and on March 30, 2021, Ms. Stein herself wrote a cover letter and submitted Dr. Mandel’s March 29, 2021 Letter to the CAP to the College of Alberta Psychology “via email: t.janzen@cap.ab.ca”. Accordingly, Ms. Stein knew the content of Dr. Mandel’s March 29, 2021 Letter to the CAP six months before Dr. Westcott filed her Sep 21, 2021 Expert Report with the verbatim identical text copied from Dr. Mandel’s March 29, 2021 Letter to the CAP. Accordingly, it may be that Dr. Westcott did not copy the text and figures directly from Dr. Mandel’s March 29, 2021 Letter to the CAP herself and that the copying was done by Ms. Stein, or by someone else who drafted Dr. Westcott Sep 21, 2021 Expert Report for her, and liberally copied from Dr. Mandel’s March 29, 2021 Letter to the CAP without any acknowledgment. Of course, if this scenario turned out to be true — and there is no evidence that it is true as of today — Dr. Westcott failed to inform the Tribunal that her Sep 21, 2021 Expert Report was prepared for her by someone else and that she merely signed it.
Either way, Dr. Westcott failed to inform the Tribunal that a substantial part of her Sep 21, 2021 Report was not prepared by her, that she was merely parroting someone else’s opinions, and that she was someone else’s mouthpiece. It was Dr. Westcott’s duty to the Tribunal to inform the Tribunal at the outset — in her report as well as in her testimony — that her Sep. 21, 2021 Expert Report was substantially copied from Dr. Mandel’s March 29, 2021 Letter to the CAP or that it was prepared for her by someone else and identify who that someone else was. Dr. Westcott did not do so and presented the plagiarized text (and identically cropped figures) as her own.
Expert’s duty to the court/tribunals and plagiarism
The Courts have repeatedly held that the expert’s opinion “must be independent in the sense that it is the product of the expert’s independent judgment, uninfluenced by who has retained him or her or the outcome of the litigation” (White Burgess, para 22). When experts copy their testimony without acknowledgment from retaining parties, counsels’ briefs, scientific articles, reports of other experts, etc., their opinions are not their own but plagiarized from others. Experts who plagiarize their reports are not independent, are dishonest, and are not credible.
Here are a few examples of the courts commenting on plagiarized expert reports.
In Rovi Guides, Inc. v. Bell Canada, 2022 FC 1388 (CanLII), the Court had the following to say about word-for-word copying of another expert’s opinion, all done without attribution:
[107] However, what happened in this case went well beyond collaboration, consultation, wordsmithing or editing. It was word-for-word copying of a technicalcal expert’s opinions and conclusions on key issues before this Court, all done without any attribution. It is plagiarism pure and simple. Plagiarism is wrong whether it is intentional or not [emphasis added].
[108] A critical distinction must be drawn between counsel assisting an expert in framing their reports in a way that is comprehensible and responsive to the pertinent legal issues in a case and leading, or be seen to have led, an expert to express a particular opinion. The latter crosses the line of propriety and puts into real doubt the impartiality and independence of the expert: White Burgess Langille Inman v Abbott and Haliburton Co, 2015 SCC 23 [White Burgess] at paras 26-32. It also brings into question what other
Rovi Guides, Inc. v. Bell Canada, 2022 FC 1388, para 107-108“assistance”may have been given to the expert in drafting their report. The expert’s opinion“must be independent in the sense that it is the product of the expert’s independent judgment, uninfluenced by who has retained him or her or the outcome of the litigation”[emphasis added] (White Burgessat para 32).
In Anderson v. Pieters, 2016 BCSC 889 (CanLIII), the Court has deal with an expert — a family physician — who copied an opinion, nearly verbatim, from a published article and presented it as his own without an acknowledgment, that is, plagiarized it:
[1] In this trial, a damages assessment by way of jury trial in respect of injuries sustained in a May 2012 motor vehicle accident, the defence objects to the admissibility of the second of two expert opinion reports (the “April Report”) of the plaintiff’s family physician, Dr. Leslie Sank.
[2] The contents of the April Report give rise to concerns as to qualifications, as to bias and independence, and as to reliability. Its admissibility was also objected to on the basis of late delivery.
[3] The concerns with respect to bias, independence and reliability stem from two issues [emphasis added]: first, as to the report having been premised on an expert opinion report of a chiropractor, Dr. Blascovich, that was ruled inadmissible following Voir Dire #1; and second, from content of the report having been plagiarized, that is, substantially copied without attribution [emphasis added].
[4] In a brief oral ruling given on the morning of the seventh day of trial, I excluded the April Report from being admitted into evidence, with written reasons to follow. These are those reasons.
…
[24] One of the 15 or 20 papers relied upon by Dr. Sank was an article authored by Steilen et al entitled, “Chronic Neck Pain: Making the Connection Between Capsular Ligament Laxity and Cervical Instability”, as published in The Open Orthopaedics Journal (2014, Vol. 8 pp. 326-345) (the “Steilen Article”). Dr. Sank acknowledged in his direct testimony that he had lifted passages from the Steilen Article, copying them into his report without attribution [emphasis added]. He said that he felt he needed to put down a technical description, and the Steilen Article presented the information logically. He understood the article to be a comprehensive review of the diagnostic and treatment modalities associated with cervical instability. He believed the journal the article came from to be reputable. He believed the content of what he copied from the article to be “acceptable to mainstream medicine”.
[25] Dr. Sank acknowledged that he only advised the plaintiff’s counsel that portions of the Steilen Article had been copied by him, after defence counsel raised a concern as to plagiarism. He testified that he had not intended to “claim ownership” of what the authors had written. He did cite other articles in the April Report, but neglected to include a citation for this one. He said this was pure inadvertence on his part.
[26] A copy of the Steilen Article was put into evidence on the voir dire. The authors do not state their credentials, but describe themselves as being in practice at a chronic pain clinic. Dr. Sank acknowledged in cross-examination on the voir dire that he has no information as to the authors’ credentials. He said he believes they are chiropractors.
[27] The extent to which Dr. Sass copied from the Steilen Article is illustrated in the Appendix to these Reasons, which reproduces some of the passages lifted from the article – in the column to the left – with the comparable passages from the April Report set out alongside for comparison, to the right. Original wording inserted by Dr. Sank is indicated in bold face.
—
[57] Lastly, Dr. Sank’s use of the Steilen Article raises very serious concerns as to bias and as to whether Dr. Sank has in fact fulfilled his duty to the court to provide an independent opinion. The concerns arise out of the failure to acknowledge his source material, and out of what he chose to copy, and what he chose to leave out [emphasis added].
[58] Regarding the copying of the Steilen Article, I would say first that I do not accept Dr. Sank’s explanation as to his failure to credit the article having been through pure inadvertence. As can be seen from the excerpts in the Appendix to these Reasons, not only did he add a few words to the passages he copied, he included two of the citations in the Steilen Article and renumbered them (renumbering notes 110 and 111 as his own notes 1 and 2), effectively representing those citations as the product of his own research. It is inconceivable that he was not conscious of the fact that his April Report was lacking necessary citation of the Steilen Article, and the fact that he was misrepresenting large portions of the narrative as his own work product. This was plagiarism, pure and simple. The plagiarism, and Dr. Sank’s failure to acknowledge it as such, were dishonest, and severely impact his credibility [emphasis added].
[59] The offence is not mitigated by the fact that the segments copied by Dr. Sank might be viewed as uncontroversial descriptions of basic human anatomy. The issue here is not whether the science is accurately stated. The issue is that Dr. Sank, who in fact had so little understanding of the neuro-vascular anatomy that he had to undertake research, is purporting to speak about the issues with authority, through almost entirely utilizing words, phrases, and a manner of expression that are not his own, without disclosure. He is misrepresenting his grasp of the material, and is thereby substantially exaggerating his expertise.
Anderson v. Pieters, 2016 BCSC 889 (CanLII)
In Raponi v. Olympia Trust Company, 2022 ONSC 4480, the Court cited from 2012 ONCA 297 for a proposition that an expert should not “simply parrot the position of the retaining client” and that “the expert opinion should always be the result of the expert’s independent analysis and conclusions.”
[35] The duty of an expert requires that he or she provide more to the Court than a restatement of the position of the party that retained them. In Carmen Alfano Family Trust v. Piersanti,[27] the Court of Appeal stated:
It is not helpful to a court to have an expert simply parrot the position of the retaining client. Courts require more. The critical distinction is that the expert opinion should always be the result of the expert’s independent analysis and conclusion [emphasis added]. While the opinion may support the client’s position, it should not be influenced as to form or content by the exigencies of the litigation or by pressure from the client. An expert’s report or evidence should not be a platform from which to argue the client’s case.
Rapoini v. Olympia Trust Company, 2022 ONSC 4480 (CanLII)
In Widelitz v. Robertson, 2009 PESCTD 21 (CanLII), the Court described and commented on perhaps the most extreme of all examples where an expert simply signed a report prepared for him by a retaining party:
[37] As he began his evidence, it became clear that he has known Widelitz for the past 25 to 30 years. Widelitz was one of his first customers. He has put up three towers for Widelitz, one of which was a 70-foot tower. He’s also serviced those towers for Widelitz.
[38] Counsel then referred him to document P-1, tab 179 and asked “is this the document that you prepared, that we were looking at?”. Mr. Bolnick replied, “I prepared that document with the help of Ken”(Widelitz) …, and proceeded to give his evidence.
[39] At the conclusion of his evidence, the court asked him to tell the court about the help that Widelitz gave him in preparing the report. His rather shocking response was that Widelitz “…kinda wrote it up. I went through it and read it, … and signed it, yeah.”
[40] Document P-1, tab 179 is a sham. It is not an independent report. It is not a report uninfluenced by the exigencies of litigation. It is not Mr. Bolnick’s unbiased, objective opinion. In fact, it is not Mr. Bolnick’s report at all. Not one word of that report belongs to Mr. Bolnick. It is all Widelitz’s evidence. As a piece of evidence, it is utterly worthless, and I place zero weight on it [emphasis added].
[41] Furthermore, this report is, in my view, a dishonest effort by its author, Widelitz, to clothe his own theories with the veneer of an expert. Widelitz is trained in the law and ought to know better than to try to slide evidence by the court in such a fashion. This dishonesty impacts negatively on Widelitz’s evidence throughout. I hasten to add that it was quite obvious that Ms. MacKay was unaware that Widelitz was the real author of the report, and that all Mr. Bolnick did was read it, sign it and “adopt it”.
Widelitz v. Robertson, 2009 PESCTD 21 (CanLII), para 37-41
Dr. Mary Westcott: An independent expert, a copy/paste “expert”, and/or someone else’s mouthpiece?
Dr. Mary Westcott’s submission of her Sep. 21, 2021 Report, extensively copied, verbatim and without acknowledgment, from Dr. Allan Mandel’s earlier March 29, 2021 Letter to the CAP, suggests Dr. Westcott is not an independent expert but someone else’s mouthpiece. Moreover, Dr. Westcott’s plagiarism is not limited to verbatim copying from Dr. Mandel’s March 29, 2021 Letter to the CAP; Dr. Westcott plagiarized much more in her reports about Ms. T:
- In Dr. Westcott’s Sep. 15, 2010 Report, Dr. Westcott plagiarized the description of the GATB CDN either from Vespa v. Dynes, 2002 ABQB 25, or, as she testified under oath, from the description of the GATB CDN floating around Mandel and Associates Ltd. and, as she testified, likely prepared by Dr. Allan Mandel himself for his associates to use in their reports. The description falsely states that the GATB CDN on conjunction with the National Occupation Classification/Career Handbook “permits comparison of client characteristics with those of actual workers in specific occupations…”. The Career Handbook is clear that it does not permit that as no one actually tested any such actual workers (see Errors, falsehoods, and plagiarism in scoring and interpreting psychological tests: Minimally competent conduct?)
- In Dr. Westcott’s Sep. 15, 2010 Report, Dr. Westcott plagiarized interpretations of Ms. T’s GATB CDN scores from a computerized interpretive report. The computer software, not having any consciousness, did not know that Dr. Weestcott falsely stated that she added +1 SEM (standard error of measurement) when she did not. Thus, the computer was unaware that its “interpretation” was based on false data, that is, the data without 1 SEM. Furthermore, it goes without saying that the computer software was not and cannot be a registered psychologist, and thus, not authorized to provide psychological services and not authorized to pronounce opinions about examinees (see Errors, falsehoods, and plagiarism in scoring and interpreting psychological tests: Minimally competent conduct?)
As the court said in Rovi Guides Inc., word-for-word copying of someone else’s work, without attribution, is “plagiarism pure and simple. Plagiarism is wrong whether it is intentional or not.” It is also dishonest.
Dr. Mary Westcott, a mid-career, Ph.D. level psychologist, and a registrant of the College of Alberta Psychologists, ought to know this. For example, the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists, adopted by the College of Alberta Psychologists, states:
In adhering to the Principle of Integrity in Relationship, psychologists would:
Accuracy/honesty
III.1 Not knowingly participate in, condone, or be associated with dishonesty, fraud, misappropriation, or misrepresentation.
…
III.7 Take credit only for the work and ideas that they have actually done or generated, and give credit for work done or ideas contributed by others (including students and trainees), in proportion to their contribution.
Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists (2017)
Dr. Westcott’s extensive plagiarism questions her impartiality, independence, expertise, and professionalism. It questions what other “assistance” Dr. Westcott received in preparing her reports and from whom. The evidence reviewed above indicates that Dr. Westcott is a copy/paste “expert” and someone else’s mouthpiece, most likely, Dr. Westcott is Dr. Allan Mandel’s mouthpiece.