As much as the law requires

Ruan's family didn't know about his injury, until Ruan called his cousin Yuan Xiaolu in October last year. She cried when she heard the news.

Ruan Libing, after the accident. Photo: Courtesy of Ruan Libing

When Ruan's parents, both farmers in their 60s, saw their one-handed son return for the Chinese New Year 2010, they cried for a week, he said.

"How can you find a wife? What will you live on for the rest of your life?" the parents asked.

His cousin noticed that Ruan seldom wore the 22,000-yuan (US$3,243) prosthetic hand paid by the social security department. It was too heavy, Ruan complained. When asked why he didn't have a lighter, higher quality one, he said the company wouldn't pay the extra fee.

His one-off compensation totaled 109,000 yuan - 20,000 yuan from social security and 89,000 from Elec-Tech. It all complied strictly with the law. But 109,000 yuan can't even buy a bathroom in Beijing.

Looking at his aging parents who still worked hard in the farmland, Ruan packed up and returned to Elec-Tech to negotiate for more money.

When factory negotiators heard he wanted more because he thought the accident was the factory's fault, they laughed and told Ruan they'd paid as much as the law required.

Ruan didn't give up. He hired a lawyer.

Testing the legal waters

Ruan's lawyer Pang Kun collected evidence of Elec-Tech's negligence, including its use of old unsafe equipment, inadequate safety training, delays for Ruan's treatment and more.

Pang believed that other than the legally required responsibility for work-related injuries, the factory bore responsibility for Ruan's injury and on July 29 this year filed suit in Xiangzhou District People's Court in Zhuhai citing infringement of personal rights and asking for a total of 265,158 yuan.

"The case is testing the waters for whether a factory should take responsibility when an injury happens due to negligence," said Pang.

Zhou Changzheng, a professor of law at Nanjing University told the Global Times that such lawsuits are rarely tried in China and have no record of success so far.

"If you take a close look at the rampant cases of work-related injuries in China, a large part of them were caused, or partially caused, by factory negligence," Zhou said. "However, according to the law, no matter who caused the injury - the factory or worker - the worker can only get the compensation dictated by the law."