Truan and Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered the eligibility of Mrs Truan to receive a spouse reversionary pension under the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits (DFRDB) Act following the death of her husband, Mr Truan. The dispute centred on whether Mrs Truan qualified as a spouse for the purposes of the DFRDB Act, given that she had been separated from her husband for many years prior to his death.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was to determine whether Mrs Truan maintained a "marital or couple relationship" with her deceased husband at the time of his death, as defined by section 6A of the DFRDB Act. This required the Tribunal to assess whether their separation was due to "special circumstances" as contemplated by the Act, specifically whether the marital relationship would have continued but for Mr Truan's mental health issues stemming from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The Tribunal's reasoning focused on the definition of a marital or couple relationship, which includes circumstances where a person ordinarily lived with another on a permanent and bona fide domestic basis. Crucially, section 6A(5) allows for periods of absence due to special circumstances, such as illness or infirmity, to be disregarded. Mrs Truan provided evidence that she left the family home in 1998 due to Mr Truan's violent and unpredictable behaviour, which she attributed to his PTSD. She stated that she would have returned to live with him had it been safe to do so, and that she continued to regard him as her husband and maintained an ongoing relationship with him until his death, despite their physical separation. The Tribunal accepted that Mr Truan's persistent PTSD constituted special circumstances that prevented reconciliation and that Mrs Truan remained legally married and maintained an ongoing relationship with him.

Consequently, the Tribunal set aside the previous decision and remitted the matter to the delegate. The Tribunal found that Mrs Truan was an eligible spouse surviving a deceased person for the purposes of section 6B(2) of the DFRDB Act, as her separation from her husband was due to the special circumstances of his PTSD, which prevented reconciliation.