embodied in the original contract performed at the price stated therein. See generally 20 Comp. Gen. 448, and court cases cited therein. Since the answer to your second question must be in the negative, consideration of the third question appears unnecessary. DECEDENTS' (B-28781) ESTATES-CLAIMS SETTLEMENTS IN ABSENCE OF Section 236, Revised Statutes, as amended, providing that all claims by and against the United States shall be settled by the General Accounting Office, leaves to the discretion of this office what evidence is required in support of such claims. By virtue of its authority under section 236, Revised Statutes, as amended, to settle all claims by and against the United States, this office has authority to settle claims for the pay and allowances of officers and employees of the United States who have died in the service under circumstances making it impossible to obtain exact information as to the state of the account of the individual, and it is within the discretion of this office in such cases to determine what evidence reasonably establishes that the United States is indebted in a specific amount to the estate of the decedent. Where War Department reports on claims of heirs for arrears of pay, etc., due military personnel who die in service show that death occurred under conditions making it impossible to obtain exact pay account information from official disbursing records, and the statement of account is made, based on information in the War Department, on the assumption that the decedent was paid in full to the last day of the month preceding that in which death occurred, settlement of such claims will be made on that basis in the absence of other considerations, with deductions being made for allotments and other indebtedness items accruing regularly or reflected by War Department records or otherwise brought to attention. Where claims of heirs of military personnel who die in service are settled without exact information as to the state of the account of the decedent being available from official disbursing records, the settlements will be treated as final with respect to the limited information on which they were based and will not be revised on surmises or inferences, but such settlements will be open to revision on the basis of exact information subsequently becoming available in the official records. Assistant Comptroller General Elliott to the Secretary of War, September 25, 1942: There has been received your letter of September 7, 1942, as follows: It is desired to bring to your attention, for such remedial action as may be possible under the circumstances, the matter of the settlement of arrears of pay of military personnel who die in the military service under conditions making it impossible or impracticable to secure complete information on which to base a settlement for arrears of pay in the exact amount due. You will appreciate that under present war conditions, with troops scattered throughout the world operating under varying conditions of combat service, it is impossible in many instances for the War Department to make an administrative report on claims filed by the heirs of military personnel, who die in the service as to the date of the last payment of such personnel, as to the items of indebtedness due the United States or its instrumentalities, and, in many cases, as to the rank and grade actually held by such personnel on the date of death, this being especially true where records have been lost, destroyed, captured by the enemy, or are otherwise not available, or where means of communication are such that complete information cannot be secured. 4 considerable number of such cases are now in this unsatisfactory status and the War Department is in receipt of an increasing volume of inquiries from such heirs, and Members of Congress on heast of such beirs, as to the status of the settlement for arrears of pay in such cases. Doubtless your office also is receiv ing a number of such in quaires. As Listrative of the general situation above described, reference is made to the case of Captain Henry Selipper. Vt. Infantry Reserve, Serial No. 0-270166, who tied in the Philippine Islands on December 25, 1941, under combat conditions which also resulted in the loss in whole or in part of military and disbursing recoris, thus making it impossible in this case to furnish your office with complete accounting data on which an exact settlement for arrears of pay could be made. The principal lack of accounting data in this case consists of being unable to furnish the date and amount of last payment, amemts that may be due the Government or its instrumentalities or even exset information as to the rank heid cy Captain Schipper at time of death, the only data as to the latter item available to the War Department being that now of record in the office of The Adjutant General. Under date of February 12, 1942, your office requested of the Office Chief of Finance s transcript of the final par account of Captain Schipper. Under date of May 19, 1942, the War Department made an administrative report in this case which, however, i. view of the causes stove indicated was incomplete, particularly as to the date of last parment of Captain Schipper since no disbursing officers' accounts from the Philippine Islands have been received in the War Department since Cetober of 194l It may be anticipated that the detailed information requested in this case may never be secured, thereby rendering impossible under present practice a settlement of arrears of pay. The situation with reference to Captain Schipper's case, and others now pending, grows out of conditions up to date. However, it is anticipated that in the future the number of such cases may greatly increase to the extent where possibly thousands will exist. Unless some remedial action can be taken to adjust them on a basis other than that required under present practice the heirs of such deceased personnel will probably never be paid any amount of final pay, With a view, therefore, to the settlement of the account of Captain Henry Schipper, Jr., it is recommended that your ofce give favorable consideration to the settlement of that account on the basis of the rank or grade shown on the last official records of the War Department and upon the assumption that the date of last payment, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, was made on the last day of the month preceding that in which his death occurred, with necessary deductions for allotments or any items of indebtedness which may be shown on the records of the War Department in Washington. It is also recommended that, if the above basis of settlement is satisfactory, the same procedure be applied to other cases which are pending in the War Department, and to those which may arise in the future where similar conditions render impossible or impracticable the furnishing of information on which to make an exact settlement. If this method of settlement under the authority vested in your office under existing law is deemed improper, it is requested that consideration be given to such other method of settlement as may be deemed to be authorized under existing law in order that some measure of relief may be given to dependents of such personnel to meet the present situation. Section 236, Revised Statutes, as amended (31 U.S.C. 71) provides: All claims and demands whatever by the Government of the United States or against it, and all accounts whatever in which the Government of the United States is concerned, either as debtor or creditor, shall be settled and adjusted in the General Accounting Ofice. This has been the law in substantially this form since March 3, 1817 (3 Stat. 366). It will be observed that the statute does not prescribe what evidence shall be the basis for the allowance of a claim. That is left to the discretion of the General Accounting Office. In the past, and in ordinary circumstances where it is practicable to furnish complete information as to the state of the account of any deceased individual formerly employed by the Government, such complete information has been required, but where such information can not be furnished there is a discretion as to what other evidence may reasonably establish that the United States is indebted in a specific amount to the estate of the deceased former officer or employee. In some cases where exact information is not obtainable statutes have provided what substitute evidence may be accepted, See, for example, sections 284, 286 and 287, Revised Statutes. But even in such statutes a large discretion is left to the accounting officers. But notwithstanding the specific statutes cited, there is similar authority implied in section 236, Revised Statutes, to settle claims for the pay and allowances of officers or employees of the United States who have died in its service where, because of the circumstances of death, exact information as to the state of the account of the individual can not be furnished, if the interests of the United States are adequately protected. Section 1268 of the Revised Statutes, 10 U. S. C. 861, provides that officers of the Army shall be paid in monthly payments. Accordingly, in those cases where disbursing activities were maintained by the War Department, it may be assumed that payments were made on the last day of the month preceding the month in which the officer or enlisted man died and that pay thereafter accrued and was in arrears from the first of the succeeding month to the date of death. If, therefore, in the described cases, reports of the War Department show the circumstances of death and state the account on the basis of information in the War Department on the assumption the deceased was paid in full to the last day of the preceding month and that the statement of account is made without access to the official disbursing records, settlement of such arrears in these cases will be made on that basis with deductions for allotment payments and other items of indebtedness accruing 1egularly or which may be shown on the records of the War Department, including other proper charges coming to the attention of this office. Of course, if it is officially shown that the circumstances of a particular case justify a different method of calculation and the interests of the Government so require, those circumstances and facts necessarily must be taken into consideration. Such settlements, it should be understood, will not be revised on surmises or inferences but will be treated as final with respect to the limited information upon which they were based. However, if subsequently exact information in the official records as to the state of the account of the individual becomes available the settlement will be revised on the basis of the official records then reported. (B-28244) WARRANT OFFICERS-STATUS AS "ENLISTED MEN A warrant officer to whom has been awarded the soldier's medal pursuant to section 11 of the act of July 2, 1926, is not an "enlisted or enrolled man" within the purview of section 13 of the act so as to entitle him to the additional pay prescribed by said séction for enlisted or enrolled men awarded the distinguished flying cross or the soldier's medal. Assistant Comptroller General Elliott to Maj. H. L. Haviland, U. S. Army, September 28, 1942: Your letter of July 6, 1942, requests decision as to the propriety of payment of a voucher in the amount of $3.07 (enclosed with your submission), in favor of Stephan Polansky (W-2103320), warrant officer (jg), purporting to cover additional pay for soldier's medal for the period from May 15 to June 30, 1942. You state that doubt as to the propriety of payment exists due to the interpretation of section 13 of the Act of July 2, 1926, 44 Stat. 780, 789. Relevant sections of the act in question are, in pertinent part, as follows: SEC. 11. Under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe the President is hereby authorized to present, but not in the name of Congress, a medal to be known as the soldier's medal, *** to any person who, while serving in any capacity with the Army of the United States, including the National Guard and the Organized Reserves, shall hereafter distinguish himself, or herself, by heroism not involving actual conflict with an enemy. SEC. 12. Under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, *** the President is hereby authorized to present, but not in the name of Congress, a distinguished flying cross***, to any person who, while serving in any capacity with the Air Corps of the Army of the United States, including the National Guard and the Organized Reserves, or with the United States Navy, *** distinguishes himself by heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight ***. SEC. 13. Each enlisted or enrolled man to whom there shall be awarded the distinguished flying cross or the soldier's medal shall be entitled to additional pay at the rate of $2 per month from the date of the act of heroism or extraordinary achievement on which the award is based, *** and said additional pay shall continue throughout his active service, whether such service shall or shall not be continuous. It is thus apparent that the soldier's medal may be awarded to any person otherwise qualified, and that officers as well as enlisted men, whom the President shall consider and select as entitled thereto "under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe" are eligible for the award thereof. But section 13 of the act expressly limits allowances of additional pay of $2 per month to enlisted or enrolled men who shall be awarded the soldier's medal or the distinguished flying cross, and hence an officer or person other than an enlisted or enrolled man, who may be the recipient of the soldier's medal or distinguished flying cross is not entitled to the statutory additional pay. Such has been the construction of the subject and other See statutes of like tenor, and similar if not identical phraseology. generally 7 Comp. Gen. 77; id. 543; 13 id. 282; A-27550, June 28, 1929. Though you do not so state, it is presumed that your doubt lies in the question as to whether a warrant officer (jg) may be classified as an enlisted man, rather than an officer, and so entitled to the additional pay provided in the statute for enlisted men awarded the soldier's medal, and your submission is herein considered on that basis. The grades or designations of "chief warrant officer" and "warrant officer (junior grade)" in the Army were established by the act of August 21, 1941, 55 Stat. 651, which modified preexisting provisions of law relative to warrant officers in the Army. However, such modifications are not here important and need not be noted at length, since they did not fundamentally alter the status of warrant officers as such, and as they had theretofore been a recognized distinct official classification of officers in the Army since the act of July 9, 1918, 40 Stat. 881, which made provisions for warrant officers in the Army Mine Planter Service, and the Act of June 4, 1920, 41 Stat. 761, as amended, which provided for certain other warrant officers. Suffice it to point out for present purposes that the act of August 21, 1941, provides that warrant officers, whether chief or junior grade, and whether under original permanent appointment in the Regular Army or temporary appointment in the Army of the United States, as authorized in the statute, may be assigned to such duties as may be prescribed by the Secretary of War including, under certain conditions, those normally discharged by commissioned officers, which they are empowered to perform "under regulations to be prescribed by the President"; that they "shall take rank next below second lieutenants and among themselves under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of War"; and that warrant officers shall be entitled to retirement under the same conditions as commissioned officers, subject to provisos not here material. The act also provides that "Warrant officers appointed under existing laws, other than masters and chief engineers of the Army Mine Planter Service, shall become warrant officers (junior grade), and masters and chief engineers of the Army Mine Planter Service shall become chief warrant officers, on the date this Act shall become effective. * Apparently, the principal purpose and effect of the act was to regroup warrant officers then in the Army into chief warrant officers and warrant officers (junior grade) as among themselves, and to provide that appointments, pay, allowances, functions and prerogatives of warrant officers in the Army should thereafter be in conformity therewith, and it would appear to be manifest that the statute wrought no material change in the classification of warrant officers as distinct from commissioned officers on the one hand, and certainly no less if, indeed, not more, distinct from enlisted men on the other. |