Three Mile Island operator charges negligence by US

December 4, 1981

The US government has been charged with negligence which contributed to the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in a $4 billion lawsuit filed by General Public Utilities Corporation.

It alleged in US District Court that ''negligence and omissions by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission'' helped cause the accident and the resulting damage to the utility, a division of which operates the plant.

The utility complains that the commission failed to warn it of a previous malfunction at another nuclear power plant in Ohio 18 months earlier that could have prevented the accident.