Ellery Elvis Hatfield and Don Bragg died in January 2006 after getting separated from their crew and lost in smoke from a conveyor belt fire at Aracoma Alma No. 1.

Their widows are suing Massey, Aracoma, company division AT Massey and company executive Don Blankenship, arguing that pressure placed upon management from executives contributed to the incident.

According to the Associated Press, the widows’ attorney Bruce Stanley told a jury that the two “died over money” and presented memos from Blankenship and other Massey executives to crews at all of its mines to concentrate on production and “stay on coal” instead of non-production-related duties.

Legal representatives for the mine said that errors occurred, the news service noted, but that evidence does not prove that the company or its management did not care or had intended for Bragg and Hatfield to be seriously injured or killed.

“Mistakes were made, poor decisions were made. There's no question that things could have been done better and in hindsight things could have been done differently," Aracoma lawyer Niall Paul told the AP.

“Horrible accident, terrible tragedy, bad decisions. Mistakes made that led up to it, but deliberate intent – you will not find evidence of that."

Massey attorney Jim Crockett Jr said that neither it nor AT Massey caused or ordered the issues that went wrong at the operation.

“It happened in spite of them and not because of them," he told the news service.

In the meantime, Blankenship’s personal lawyer Tom Flaherty wants him removed from the case because his position as chief of Massey removes him from the daily logistics of the producer’s operations.

“Don Blankenship does not belong in this case," he said.

Stanley, however, wants to show that he actually micromanaged Aracoma for years and was directly related to its everyday workings, according to the news service.

Testimony is scheduled to begin today and last about a week. January 2009 will be the third anniversary of the incident, which occurred just days after the Sago explosion that killed 12 and left one man seriously injured.

Massey was fined $US1.5 million for 25 violations that the US Mine Safety and Health Administration said contributed to the deaths of the men. The producer is currently appealing the fines.

A criminal investigation into the fire is also still ongoing by the US Attorney’s Office in the state’s capital city of Charleston.