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OPM.gov / Policy / Pay & Leave / Claim Decisions / Decisions
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003187

Office of the General Counsel

Matter of: [xxx]
File Number: 003187
Date: June 25, 1999

OPM Contact: Jo-Ann Chabot

This claim for restoration of four hours of annual leave forfeited at the end of the 1998 leave year is denied for the reasons stated below.

Section 6304 of title 5, United States Code, governs the accumulation of annual leave and specifies that most employees may accumulate not more than 30 days (or 240 hours) of annual leave for use in succeeding leave years. Section 6304 further provides that annual leave in excess of 30 days will be reduced at the end of the leave year to the allowable amount. In mid-December 1998, the claimant's supervisor granted his request to take annual leave in an amount that would have enabled the claimant to use all of the annual leave that he had accumulated in excess of 30 days before the end of the 1998 leave year. However, Executive Order 13109 (December 17, 1998) closed all executive departments and agencies of the federal government, and excused from duty all of the employees in these agencies and departments, for the last half of the scheduled workday on December 24, 1998. See 63 Federal Register 70631. Consequently, the claimant forfeited four hours of annual leave at the end of the 1998 leave year. The claimant's employing agency, the [agency], denied his request to restore the four hours of forfeited annual leave.

Section 6304(d)(1) further specifies that forfeited annual leave shall be restored to an employee when the leave is lost because of: (1) administrative error when the error causes a loss of annual leave otherwise accruable after June 30, 1960; (2) exigencies of the public business when the annual leave was scheduled in advance; or, (3) sickness of the employee when the annual leave was scheduled in advance. The authority to restore forfeited annual leave is limited to the statutory criteria for restoration specified in section 6304(d)(1). The circumstances of this claim do not fulfill any of these statutory criteria. Matter of Patricia A. Lloyd, B-253928 (April 12, 1994). Accordingly the claim for restoration of four hours of annual leave is denied.

This determination is final. No further administrative review is available within OPM. Nothing in this settlement limits the employee's right to bring an action in an appropriate United States Court.

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