An elected selectman of a town is not an employee and the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) has specifically so held. See Bruno's Case, 340 Mass. 420 (1960). In that case, a selectman for the Town of Athol who was injured while officially "perambulating" the Town's borders filed a claim for workers' compensation.

d that the combined effect of the vote of the commissioners on June 1, 1937, was (a) that the county thereby accepted the provisions of G.L.c. 152, § 69, assuming it had not done so earlier, (b) that the coverage of the Workmen's Compensation Act was thereby extended to include officers employed by the county at its house of correction as well as other classes of employees not involved in the present case, and (c) that the decisions of this court in the Devney, Lesuer, and Saxe cases cited and relied on by the plaintiff became irrelevant to the present issue. We note the following cases (although not cited in the briefs of the parties) decided since 1937, denying claims for workmen's compensation against governmental bodies: Scordis's Case, 305 Mass. 94 (1940), which involved an injury to a person while performing labor as a member of a crew of a city ash removal truck, the city having required him to perform the labor as a condition to his receipt of welfare assistance; Bruno's Case, 340 Mass. 420 (1960), which involved injuries sustained by a town selectman while perambulating the town boundaries as required by G.L.c. 42, § 2; and O'Malley's Case, 361 Mass. 504 (1972), which involved injuries to a person in the course of his service as a juror. In each case the claim was denied on the ground that the claimant was not an "employee" within the language of G.L.c. 152, § 1 (4), defining that word to mean "every person in the service of another under any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written."