One may wonder, in any process of the stage of preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS, as to whether an approval is based merely on a “semantic” battle with the Office of Personnel Management.
Inasmuch as a submission of a Federal Disability Retirement application to the Office of Personnel Management is a “paper submission” (yes, I know, we are quickly moving towards an age of paperless technology, but you know what is meant by the term), and no actual presentation or contact will be made with the personnel at OPM (unless it goes to a Hearing before an Administrative Judge at the Merit Systems Protection Board); as such, the query is sometimes posed as to whether it is merely a semantic battle.
In the days of Plato and Aristotle, “lawyers” were called “sophists” or “rhetoriticians” — thus, the modern terms of “sophisticated” or “sophistry”, and “rhetoric” or “rhetorical”. Either or both of the terms imply a negative connotation, that through semantic sleight of hand, one can be fooled into being persuaded to adopt a certain viewpoint or opinion.
While it may be true to a certain and limited extent that obtaining Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS may involve some semantic quibbling, the underlying substantive basis in granting or denying a Federal Disability Retirement application, either under FERS or CSRS, continues to remain in “the law” — based upon statutory and regulatory criteria, upon legal opinions from cases decided by the Merit Systems Protection Board and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
While “how X is said” may have some persuasive effect, it is ultimately still “what is said” that retains the most powerful impact. Substance over appearance still wins the day — the identical philosophical concerns of Plato and Aristotle continues to remain true today.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: The Job of a Federal Disability Attorney, Theory and Practice: Tips and Strategies for a Successful Application | Tagged: addressing logical and philosophical issues in the long federal disability process, applying philosophical principles to law, argumentation principles learned in philosophy and applied in opm law, attorney representing federal workers for disability throughout the united states, engaging in a opm disability case through persuasion, federal disability law and legal argumentation, federal disability retirement law and language used in the application, federal employee retirement attorney, FERS disability retirement, form and substance in federal disability law, going back to the basics in federal disability law, Greek philosophy, language form and sample disability retirement usps, lawyers as philosophers, legal & foundational argument, objective language and evidence in the opm disability claim, opm disability law and language, OPM disability retirement, owcp disability retirement, philosophers as lawyers, philosophical pragmatism to the domain of opm disability law, representing federal employees from any us government agency, speaking the federal disability retirement language, the art of persuasion in fers disability retirement law, the substance of fers disability law, the use of language in the fers disability application, the value of applying philosophical principles into law practice, USPS disability retirement | Leave a comment »