Pillsbury

The question presented by these three cases is the proper basis upon which to compute compensation due under the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (33 USCA §§ 901-950) to an employee who has not worked at the same employment for substantially the whole of the year preceding his injury. The Commission has fixed 270 days worked as the measure of “substantially the whole” of the preceding year, and in each of the present cases the injured employee had worked less than 270 days in the year preceding his injury.

The statutory provisions applicable are .found in section 10 of the act ( 44 Stat. 1431 [33 USCA § 910]):

We are here concerned with sections 10 (b) and 10 (c).

A brief statement of the pertinent facts in the three eases, designating them by the names of the employees, will indicate the problem.

1. Lawlor. This man earned about $100 per month while working. During the year preceding his injury he lost three months’ work on account of illness. In the remaining nine months he worked less than five days a week. He was not a member of a regular gang of workmen, but went to the water front daily, looking for work. He describes himself as a “free lance” or…