Lockhardt v. Sterner

This is a workmen's compensation case. After a fall of snow, the foreman of the highway department locally in charge hired a number of unemployed men to work cleaning away the snow. The petitioner was one of these. He had never been so hired before, and was taken on merely for that job, at fifty cents an hour. As the deputy commissioner found, there was no assurance of a recurrence of the employment, outside of the five days that he worked. His fingers became frost bitten, and his claim for compensation was based on that fact.

The deputy commissioner made an award. On appeal to the Common…