District court serving Tampere denies €240 menu-change claim over unproven extra work

The District court serving Tampere has denied Elina Rantala’s claim for €240 for menu changes, finding that she had not proved either that the work fell outside an included revision or that the additional charge was supported. Judgment was entered for Oskari Lehtinen, with no payment ordered.

The dispute turned on what permission to proceed meant after a warning about separate billing. Lehtinen had already paid €480 for a finished menu with one revision. Rantala maintained that his later request was extra work; he argued that he had authorised changes, not an additional €240 fee.

The accepted quotation distinguished between the included revision and additional revisions, which would be billed separately. But it gave no rate or calculation method and did not establish that the included revision had been used before the disputed changes.

The WhatsApp exchange gave Rantala some support. After Lehtinen requested a lunch section and price changes, she said she understood the included revision was finished and would bill this round separately. His direction to proceed was meaningful evidence that he had received notice of her position; the warning could not simply be ignored.

That still left a decisive gap. Rantala’s statement showed her understanding that the included revision was complete, not that it actually was. The competing interpretations of the messages did not supply the missing proof. As the party seeking payment, she had to establish that these changes fell outside the agreed €480 scope.

The amount was independently unproven. Neither the quotation nor the messages stated €240, and there was no separate evidence explaining its calculation. An invoice alone did not establish that the sum was agreed or otherwise supported, even if the work had been separately chargeable.

Rantala argued that the quotation covered only one revision and that Lehtinen authorised paid additional work after an express separate-billing warning. She sought the full invoice while acknowledging that the evidence did not prove agreement to the exact sum, exhaustion of the included revision, or how €240 was calculated.

Lehtinen argued that his reply authorised the changes rather than an extra fee. He relied on the absence of both a price and confirmation that the included revision had been used. His account of his understanding was relayed through counsel, not given as admitted witness testimony.

The disagreement arose after the original €480 payment, when Lehtinen asked for additions and price changes to the menu. The accepted email quotation and full WhatsApp exchange became the central documents, supporting different readings of whether the request was included work or a separately billable round.

The decision does not establish that Lehtinen could never owe payment for separately billed work. It resolves only this €240 claim on the supplied evidence, leaving undetermined any amount that might have been agreed for other work or established by evidence not before the court.