By Wang Biqiang
From News, page 6, issue 395, Nov 24, 2008
Original article: [Chinese]
Three months after a toxic chemical was found pervasive in milk produced by China's top dairy companies, the families of children killed or made ill were pushing forward with legal action against the firms involved.
On November 24, a small group of three attorneys led by Xu Zhiyong paid a visit to Sanlu Group's Shijiazhuang, Hebei province office, which was caught up in the melamine-tainted milk formula scandal this past September.
They handed over three documents: a list of names of victims they represented, a letter urging compensation for victims affected by Sanlu's tainted milk, and a proposal on how they should be compensated.
Xu headed the Open Constitution Initiative (OCI), a Chinese legal NGO, and was a key member of the pro bono legal team it organized on September 13 to represent victims of the tainted milk scandal that ensnared China's top dairy producers. Link: EO milk scandal timeline
The lawyers decided to choose a class-action approach after several suits against milk producers were thrown out before trial.
As of November 20, the OCI had been retained to represent 126 plaintiffs in class-action litigation against producers of the tainted milk. Within that group, 54 were suing Sanlu.
According to Xu, the letter they handed over to Sanlu was a demand for fair negotiation and settlement out of court to avert court action. They told the EO that they warned Sanlu that the suit would be filed at the High People's Court of Hebei Province in one week if they did not receive an acceptable response.
The proposed compensation scheme divided victimized children into six types: dead, seriously ill (such as those who had renal failure or undergone operations), those with hydronephrosis, inpatients with stones on both kidneys, inpatients with stones of 0.5 centimeters and above in one kidney, and outpatients with stones of 0.4 centimeters and below in one kidney.
Compensation for the different types varied from RMB 28,000 to 396,000. Except for the dead, the other five types had not demanded follow-up medical costs or compensation for mental distress, Xu said.
Asked what what happen if the court refused to hear the case, he said the team would work to expand the plaintiffs in their suit. They'd file suits again when the group reached 300 and 500.
Due to the complexity of evidence collection, they'd take collective action against other tainted milk formula producers later, he added.
Guo Yushan, director of the Transition Institute, an NGO dedicated to social and economic research, was also working on behalf of the victims' families. He said it would be hard to claim for compensation in the future if people found their health affected by melamine they absorbed today.
"Compensation is not the point. The point is they [dairy companies] should be responsible for the children's health in the next five to ten years," said the parent of one child who developed kidney stones after consuming tainted the milk.
Therefore, Guo suggested establishing a fund for kidney stone children, from which they could make claims against future medical costs and compensation for mental distress. This would be the most effective way to solve the problem in the long term, simplifying procedures and saving costs, he said.
