Payment of Death Gratuity Purpose This Management Instruction (MI) does the following: States the Postal Service‘s policy on the payment of a death gratuity to employees who died from an injury sustained in the line of duty, and Provides guidance on the procedures for paying a death gratuity. Departments and agencies of the federal government are authorized to pay a death gratuity by section 651 of the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1997, Pub. L. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009 (1996). Section 651 of the Act does not apply to the Postal Service. However, the Postal Service has decided to pay a comparable death gratuity under the general authority granted to it by 39 U.S.C. § 401.