Denial of Separate Maintenance Allowance

An employee of the Agency for International Development (AID) requested reconsideration of the denial of his claim for a separate maintenance allowance (SMA) for his wife during part of a tour of duty in Vietnam. The denial was based on regulations stating that entitlement to SMA ceases once there is a breach in domestic relations. The employee's first wife filed for a divorce action on January 8, 1968, and then placed her cause of action on an inactive court calendar, whereupon the employee contended that the breach was a transient gesture. GAO disagreed, holding that the wife did not dismiss her petition for divorce and that a divorce was, in fact, granted on January 13, 1969. The date of the filing for divorce was held to be the point in time when there was definitive evidence of a breach in domestic relations, and the employee was not entitled to SMA after that date.