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B-209076 1 (1983-08-25)

handle is hein.gao/gaobadlgv0001 and id is 1 raw text is: OECISION FILE: B-209076 THE COMPTROLLER OENERAL OF THE UNITEO STATES aG0T2 WASHINGTON. 0. C. 20548 DATE: August 25, 1983 MATTER OF: Kenneth W. Mitchell (Deceased) Where several women, each purporting to be the widow of a deceased member of an Armed Force, submit conflicting claims for entitlement to the death gratuity due under 10 U.S.C. SS 1475-1480 (1976), and there is a sufficient basis in the record to support a finding that only one claimant is the sur- viving spouse, her claim will be allowed to the preclusion of all others. Although Louisiana law permits a good-faith putative spouse to take an equal share in the civil effects of a putative marriage, she is not entitled under the Federal statute to a portion.of the death gratuity as a surviving spouse. Roberta T. Mitchell appeals the settlement of our Claims Group with regard to the payment of the death gratuity due the survivor of Petty Officer Kenneth W. Mitchell, USN (deceased). Her claim was denied on the grounds that she had not been legally married to the decedent and, therefore, that she was not the surviv- ing spouse entitled to the death gratuity pursuant to 10 U.S.C. SS 1475-1480 (1976). For the following rea- sons the action of the Claims Group must be sustained. Durinq the course of 8 years, Petty Officer Mitchell had been married a total of eight times. Originally married in May 1974, he left his first wife and married another woman in November 1975, 2 months before the divorce of his first marriage became final. Then followed a sequence of marriages. On October 15, 1979, Petty Officer Mitchell married his fifth wife without any legal impediment because his divorce from his fourth wife became final 1 month earlier. He married his sixth wife, Bernadette Smith Mitchell, on June 7, 1980, in Louisiana. He was not divorced from his fifth wife until April 20, 1981. DIGEST:

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