The only logical explaination for the issue of status not changing after claiming, I can give is that the assumption is made that "Whenever someone claims a tasks, that particular task should not be persisted becuase the immediate action the person, who has claimed, will perform is of completing that task and that tooo in the same transaction boundary". If the transaction boundaries are changed means claim transaction/operation is complete(here task is not persisted in db.) then there will be issues.