A few months later, the owners of the Ristine Grain Elevator filed for bankruptcy. A federal judge in Little Rock, Arkansas, got involved, declared it a federal bankruptcy case, and took control over the company's elevators in both Missouri and Arkansas. He ordered all the grain stored in the elevators to be sold as part of the assets of the facility owners.

Wayne and other farmers immediately protested the decision, stating that the grain was their private property, and they had state-issued warehouse receipts to prove it. But when the judge refused to honor those receipts, it set the stage for a modern-day version of David versus Goliath.