'Uneducated' farmer studied law for 16 years to sue big corporation that ruined his fields — and he just won
With only three years of schooling, he copied law books to teach himself for 16 years.
In the remote village of Yushutun in northeast China, a farmer with barely three years of schooling has become the face of an extraordinary legal battle. Wang Enlin, now in his 60s, spent 16 years teaching himself law so he could sue Qihua Group, a powerful state-owned chemical company, for polluting the land where his community lived and farmed. The fight began during the Lunar New Year in 2001. Wang was with neighbors, playing cards and making dumplings, when wastewater from Qihua’s nearby factory suddenly flooded the house, as reported by Daily Mail.
The toxic water also spilled into the village’s farmland, devastating the crops. A government document issued that year confirmed the worst: the land "cannot be used for a long time" due to contamination. Qihua Group was no small opponent. The state-owned company had assets worth more than two billion yuan (around $315 million) and produced polyvinyl chloride on a massive scale. Reports said it discharged between 15,000 and 20,000 tons of chemical waste every year. Over the span of 16 years, that added up to an estimated 320,000 tons. The result was catastrophic: a 71-acre wasteland filled with calcium carbide residue, a 478-acre pond of liquid waste, and a nearby lake that villagers said had become sterile, tranquil, and almost completely devoid of life.
For Wang, the disaster was personal. His farmland was no longer usable, and he was forced to rent a small home from the village authority for 50 yuan a month while figuring out what to do. He began writing letters to officials, but was told he needed evidence and legal backing. "I knew I was in the right, but I did not know what law the other party had broken or whether or not there was evidence," Wang said. So he set out to learn. With little money to his name, Wang started spending hours in a local bookstore, reading through law books with the help of a dictionary and copying passages by hand.
He couldn’t afford to buy the books, so he repaid the shopkeeper in corn from his harvest. Over the years, he filled notebook after notebook, determined to build a case. He wasn’t just fighting for himself, but also used his growing legal knowledge to help neighbors document their own losses. Together, the families compiled evidence against Qihua. In 2007, a law firm specializing in pollution cases agreed to give free legal advice and help file a petition, but the case languished. It wasn’t until 2015, eight years later, that the court finally began processing it.
By then, Wang had gathered 16 years’ worth of evidence. This kind of grassroots resilience isn’t unique to Wang’s story. A study published in Nature Sustainability analyzed more than 25,000 environmental civil suits in the United States between 1988 and 2022 and found that plaintiffs fighting pro-regulatory causes were more likely to win their cases, particularly when driven by committed individuals or small communities rather than large organizations. Researchers noted that persistence, evidence-gathering, and a willingness to challenge entrenched power often tipped the balance in court.
This year, the Angangxi District Court of Qiqihar ruled in favor of Wang and 55 families, ordering Qihua Group to pay 820,000 yuan (about $119,000) in compensation. The decision also required the company to remove the chemical waste and return it to its industrial site. While the payout was less than 15,000 yuan for each family, Wang said the principle mattered more than the money. "We will certainly win. Even if we lose, we will continue to battle," he said confidently.
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