Portland small claims court denies $80 wage claim over unproven extra evening shift

The small claims court serving Portland denied Lena Brooks’s request for $80 in unpaid wages from Owen Mercer, finding insufficient evidence that she completed four additional hours of shop work or that payment remained outstanding. Judgment was entered for Mercer, with no payment ordered.

Brooks said she spent Thursday from 5 to 9 p.m. labeling a delivery at Mercer’s request, outside her regular schedule. The dispute turned not on the arithmetic—four hours at $20 an hour—but on whether the available evidence established that she had done the work.

The weekly paper schedule was the only presented document discussed in the judgment. It listed 30 assigned hours, ended Thursday at 5 p.m. and contained no evening-shift entry. But it had no space for clock-out signatures, and nothing established that every extra assignment would appear on it.

The court therefore refused to treat the schedule as proof that Brooks had not worked later. That limitation did not, however, establish that she had completed the shift.

Brooks referred to text messages and a final payment statement, but neither was presented for review. Her account was specific and consistent, the judgment said, yet her submissions were not the documents themselves. Even as described, the texts showed a request to work and her acceptance—not necessarily completion of all four hours.

Mercer’s inability to say what happened that evening did not shift the burden of proof to him. With no presented time record, witness account or other evidence confirming completion, Brooks had not established the extra hours. Nor could the court independently verify her payment account without the statement.

A smaller award was also unsupported: the evidence did not independently establish any number of additional hours below four.

Brooks’s side argued that the Thursday text exchange established an agreement for the additional shift and that the existing $20 hourly rate applied. She maintained that her final payment covered only 30 scheduled hours, totaling $600, leaving $80 due.

She also argued that Mercer’s lack of firsthand knowledge that she had not worked supported ordering payment. Mercer responded that accepting a shift was different from completing it, and that the messages had not been provided for review.

Mercer said he had paid the 30 scheduled hours. He acknowledged that he had neither a separate evening time record nor firsthand knowledge of what happened, and asked for denial or an award limited to proven hours.

The alleged labeling assignment fell outside Brooks’s regular schedule and was not entered on the paper schedule. There was no separate written contract; Brooks relied on the hourly pay arrangement and the asserted Thursday exchange.

The ruling leaves an important factual limit intact: it does not establish that the evening shift never happened. It resolves the payment claim on the evidence actually presented, rather than the documents described during the hearing.