José R. Valles Calatrava, a literary theory professor at the University of Almería in Spain, sued Franciscó Álamo Felices in 2019 for infringement of his intellectual property rights. The lower court found Felices responsible for “a huge amount of plagiarism at different times and in different articles, revealing a systematic and conscientious parasitic attitude and a desire for appropriation”. In an October 2025 decision, the Tribunal Supremo dismissed an appeal by Felices against the ruling, finding he failed to demonstrate any fundamental errors of law. Felices is obligated to withdraw the two books and seven articles or to “clearly mark them as plagiarism,” according to the judgment.

Felices told Retraction Watch he did not plagiarize the works, and that the pieces simply expanded upon entries in a book he cowrote with Calatrava: Diccionario de Teoría de la Narrativa. The dictionary contains nearly 1,000 terms in various fields of narratology, Felices said. In addition, the university dismissed a complaint about this issue, he told us in Spanish, finding no plagiarism occurred.

Source https://retractionwatch.com/2026/02/02/spanish-court-rules-researcher-plagiarized-colleague-orders-withdraw-of-works/

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