“Discretion” is little used term and concept in the world we live in. Instead, the focus is always upon one’s “right” to speak about anything, to expose everything, to assert one’s demands, etc. But the conceptual applicability of the term should not be ignored in preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS — one must be “discrete” as to which issues to include in such an application.
By “discretion” is not meant to imply any attempt to hide or obfuscate an issue; rather, because Federal Disability Retirement is an administrative process with its own inherent rules and laws, there is a containment of the types of issues which one should stick to. For example, one should minimize and stay away, as much as possible, from such issues as “workplace harassment”, “hostile work environment“, “employee harassment”, etc. Such issues might be relevant in an EEOC case, but potentially detrimental to a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS.
There are Federal and Postal employees, however, who will insist that such issues “need to be brought up” in order to “expose” such injustice. But everything has a proper time, place, and jurisdictional forum. Discretion is always a relevant concept — but to recognize that discretion is a necessity in and of itself requires discretionary judgment; something that is sorely lacking in this day and age.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: Theory and Practice: Tips and Strategies for a Successful Application | Tagged: an opm disability claim versus eeoc filings, civil service disability retirement, deciding what to mention and what to emphasize in the fers disability application, discretion with the opm in handling a federal disability reconsideration, discretionary decisions based on experience and knowledge of opm disability law, federal disability law blog, FERS Disability, fers disability application not exactly an avenue to social justice, focusing on getting your fers disability application approved, getting your fers disability approved and worrying about social justice later, harassment is not a medical issue, how an opm disability attorney must be able to make discretionary decisions, law firm representing clients in opm disability law all across america, OPM disability lawyer, owcp disability retirement, postal service disability retirement, questions about discretionary decision-making in a specific claim, reflections on what to say and what not to say in the opm disability claim, resources for injured federal workers, right to speak versus getting your disability claim approved, situational disability and the hostile environment claim, us postal service hostile workplace, workers comp harassment | Leave a comment »
