Ke Changli, a woman from Yichang in Central China's Hubei Province, will have her lawsuit against an American company -- Rotec Industries Inc -- heard on December 4.

The foreign-related case will be heard by the Yichang Intermediate People's Court, but should have been finished at this time last year, according to Deng Yiping, a former attorney for Ke who is again expected to give testimony in her case.

Rotec's office in Yichang confirmed that it had received a summons from the Yichang Intermediate People's Court but refused to make any further comment about the case.

"We will translate the summons into English and send it to our headquarters in the United States," a Rotec representative said.

Ke said she seeks compensation of about 3.46 million yuan (US$420,000) for her husband's death.

On November 19, 1999, Ke's husband fell to his death from a lift attached to a Rotec machine at the construction site of the Three Gorges Dam Project where he was working.

He apparently died because the door of the elevator suddenly broke and opened as he ascended the lift, causing him to fall.

According to a report by the Yichang Labor Bureau, provided by Deng, defects in the design and manufacture of the machine were the main cause of the accident.

Ke said the US company should be blamed for those defects and be made to pay for its negligence.

But the company has argued that it was not their machine that caused the accident and that the door was not the original one, Ke said.

The original door had been changed by workers after the accident, which cannot be used as an excuse by the company, she pointed out.

On October 8 last year, Ke sued the company but the Yichang Intermediate People's Court rejected her case on March 19 this year.

She then brought the lawsuit to the Hubei High People's Court, and the court asked the Yichang Intermediate People's Court to try the case again.

Ke claims she asked for compensation from the US company several times but was told it will not take responsibility for the accident.

"They never admitted to me that the accident was caused by a defect of their machine,'' said Ke. ''They said it was out of sympathy that they would pay, but they have so far paid nothing."

"I suffered a lot from this case. It seems to me that Rotec pays no attention to the life of my husband and other Chinese at all," said Ke.

On September 3 last year, another accident at the Three Gorges construction site resulted in the deaths of three more workers and serious injuries to 20 others. The machine in operation during that accident was the same one that killed Ke's husband, said Deng.

(China Daily November 7, 2001)