A clerical error has proven expensive for a local hotel, costing it tens of thousands of yuan and perhaps leading to the death of a mentally ill woman.

The Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court yesterday ruled the Shanghai Jieyuan Hotel was partially responsible for the death, and ordered it to pay the woman's parents 35,000 yuan (US$4,321).

The dead woman, a 37-year-old former translator surnamed Ke, was diagnosed with a mental disorder when she was 28 and had been living with her parents ever since.

Her condition became worse in the summer of 2004, and she often spoke of returning back to heaven.

On August 21, 2004, she again repeated that she was determined to return to heaven because God was calling her. She took out a pen and paper, and wrote her last words.

When her mother went to call a taxi to take her to hospital, Ke disappeared. An hour later, she called her mother, saying that she would commit suicide.

Her worried parents called the police at once.

They said Ke probably went to a hotel to kill herself as she had nowhere else to go.

Police quickly searched an online database of hotel guests in the city, but couldn't find Ke's name anywhere.

Two days later, Ke's dead body was found in the Shanghai Jieyuan Hotel. She had hung herself.

Police later discovered that Ke had registered at the hotel using an expired identification card. A hotel employee had typed her name into the computer wrong, mixing up one character with another that has the same pronunciation. That mistake prevented police from finding Ke when they first searched the database of hotel guests, the court heard.

Ke's parents said that the hotel should be held partially responsible for her death as its mistake prevented them from finding their daughter in time to stop her from killing herself.

The hotel argued that the plaintiffs should bear all the responsibility because they didn't supervise their daughter properly.

The court agreed with the parents, saying the hotel was 10 percent responsible for the death.

(Shanghai Daily December 20, 2005)