The sounder view is that he is entitled to the wage, because he has fulfilled what he was hired to do. So long as he is not liable to you for the garment, he is not liable to you for the work done on it. For if we say that he is entitled to no wage, that means we have made him bear liability for the work he put into the garment, and it is lost to him. Moreover, he neither transgressed nor was negligent, and he completed the work required of him. The destruction of the garment, for example, is borne by its owner; as for the worker, he has discharged his obligation. So how can we say that he is entitled to no wage?!

If the owner of the garment says, “You did not do any work on it or sew it,” while the tailor says, “I did sew it,” whose statement is accepted? The owner’s statement is accepted, because the basic presumption is that it was not sewn. This applies even if enough time has passed for him to have sewn the garment and he then claims that he did so. However, the one whose statement we accept must take an oath.

Is the oath here a definitive oath, or an oath based on lack of knowledge?

We say: it is a definitive oath. Thus, if he says, “I will not swear definitively,” we say: then the tailor’s statement is accepted. If he says, “I will swear only that I do not know,” we say: this does not override the opposing party’s statement, because the presumption is that his claim, when nothing stronger opposes it, is valid.

Issue: If the cloth belongs to the tailor and is destroyed while in his possession, he is entitled to nothing: neither its value nor a wage. Thus, the difference between the private employee and the jointly employed worker is found in their definition, liability, and entitlement to wages.

Wages become due upon the contract if they are not deferred, and they are earned upon delivery of work that is owed as a debt. Whoever takes possession of an item under an invalid lease, and the term expires, must pay the customary wage.

His statement, “Wages become due upon the contract”: after the author mentioned the rulings of leasing, which in all the preceding discussion concerned the leased item, he now mentions what relates to the wage. The wage is the consideration agreed upon by the two contracting parties,