On my website, Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer, I give a more extensive explanation of a recent and important case impacting federal disability retirement applications, but I think that it is important for everyone filing, or contemplating filing, for disability retirement under FERS or CSRS, to be aware of the recent United States Court of Appeals case for the Federal Circuit, Vanieken-Ryals v. OPM, #2006-3260, decided on November 26, 2007, in which it was found that OPM’s adherence to the rule that they will refuse to “consider such medical evidence…for being ‘purely subjective’ is a critical legal error…and clearly prejudicial.”
Often, in cases involving cognitive impairment, psychiatric disabilities, disabilities involving diffuse and chronic pain, and those conditions such as Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue, etc. the Federal Circuit Court in Vanieken-Ryals has essentially held that OPM’s adherence to “objective evidence” is “unsupported in the law, was arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law.”
The Judge therein stated that OPM must consider the medical evidence that is submitted, and cannot attack a medical condition unless there is a doubt as to the “credentials or veracity [of the doctor],” and this is especially true where the doctor has “utilized established diagnostic criteria and [is] consistent with ‘generally accepted professional standards’ ” of medical practice.
This is an important case for Federal disability retirement applicants to use when filing for psychiatric medical disabilities, and for those “hard to define” cases (again, e.g., Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, etc.), because OPM will often declare as a basis for denial that the applicant lacked “objective medical evidence” or that there was no “objective diagnostic tests” showing the medical condition. This is, to use a very well-know legal term, now considered “baloney”. As long as the doctor has applied established diagnostic criteria and generally accepted professional standards, unless OPM can attack the credentials of the doctor, they must consider the medical evidence.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: Application, Appeals, and Other Medical Documentation Submitted To the OPM, Clarifications of Laws or Rules, Federal Disability Judge-Made Decisions Quoted, Important Cases, Legal Updates and/or the Current Process Waiting Time, Mental/Nervous Condition | Tagged: anxiety & panic attack in the Postal Service, anxiety and depression, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CDC) and Postal/Federal workers, chronic pain cases in federal disability retirement, CSRS disability retirement federal attorney, established diagnostic criteria on mental conditions, federal court decisions in OPM disability cases, federal disability attorney, federal disability lawyer, federal employee disability compensation, federal laws retirement, federal workers with panic attacks, federal workers with sleeping and fatigue problems, FERS disability retirement, fibromyalgia and federal disability retirement, Fibromyalgia in OPM disabiity retirement, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), getting fers disability and anxiety, medical condition(s), mental condition in OPM disability, mental health therapist, mental or nervous disabling conditions, MSPB Administrative Judge (AJ), MSPB disability attorney, MSPB disability lawyer, objective medical evidence for federal disability cases, office of personnel management retirement, OPM disability attorney, OPM disability lawyer, OPM Federal Government Disability Decisions, OPM mental condition, OPM objective decision, OPM psychiatric and physical conditions, OWCP and cases disturbed sleep and severe fatigue, physical inability removal, physician's statements in an OPM disability case, postal workers owcp rights attorney, psychiatric conditions, psychiatric disability in OPM Disability Retirement, psychiatrist, psychologist, stress disability for federal employees, the Vanieken-Ryals case, Vanieken-Ryals v. Office of Personnel Management, when "objective medical evidence" is not necessary, when the OPM creates its own laws |
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