**A Chinese court is hearing the first civil compensation claim by a parent whose child fell ill during last year’s tainted milk scandal.**Ma Xuexin of Henan province is suing collapsed dairy group Sanlu and a supermarket for $8,000 (£4,860).
His young son is one of hundreds of thousands of infants who became sick after drinking baby milk formula laced with the industrial chemical melamine.
Two people were executed on Tuesday for their part in the scheme.
Nineteen other people have been jailed in connection with the case, which resulted in the deaths of at least six children.
Melamine is used in the making of plastics and fertilisers. If ingested it can cause kidney failure and kidney stones.
MELAMINE SCANDAL
- **10 Sept: **14 babies reported ill in Gansu province
- **15 Sept: **Beijing confirms first deaths from the contamination
- **22 Sept: **Number of ill babies rises to tens of thousands (and eventually will rise to more than 300,000)
- **23 Sept: **Other countries start to test Chinese dairy products or remove them from shops
- **31 Oct: **Chinese media suggest melamine is routinely added to animal feed
- **23 Dec: **The main dairy firm involved, Sanlu, files for bankruptcy
- **31 Dec: ** Four senior Sanlu executives go on trial
- 2 Jan 2009: Firms involved ask for forgiveness in a mass New Year text message
- **22 Jan: **Courts in Hebei province sentence two men to death and 19 to prison terms
- **March: **Higher courts reject appeals
- **24 Nov: **Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping executed
Investigations have shown that dairy producers watered down their milk to make supplies go further, then added melamine so that it appeared to have a higher protein content.
In December 2008, the government ordered 22 firms implicated in the scandal to pay a total of 1.1bn yuan ($161m; £97.5m) to the hundreds of thousands of families involved.
But some families say the compensation is inadequate and are turning to the courts.
According to state-run China Daily, Mr Ma told the hearing that his 20-month-old son had developed a kidney stone after being fed hundreds of packets of Sanlu-brand milk formula.
As well as the compensation, he wants his son’s medical expenses to be paid by the state-administered milk compensation fund until the boy reaches adulthood, the daily said.
Beijing-based lawyer Xu Zhiyong, who is handling about 200 such cases, told the BBC that the start of this hearing represented a breakthrough.
He said that the cases were being handled individually because the courts had rejected an attempt to sue for compensation as a group.
So far six cases had been accepted by courts across the country and Mr Ma’s was the first to be heard, he said.
The trial began on Friday at a court in north-east Beijing and continues on 9 December.