In preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under either FERS or CSRS, it is important to pause in the beginning stages of the process, prior to “going down the road” of the long and difficult administrative process of preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to consider the conceptual distinction between a legal criteria and the proof which is needed in order to satisfy the eligibility requirements of the legal criteria.
In this day and age when the “culture at large” believes that an individual who speaks the loudest, uses words which appear in form articulate, and in cadence of some eloquence, the reverberations to the legal community have been felt both qualitatively and quantitatively. Lawyers are supposed to be word-crafters; lay individuals who have some inkling of “the law”, may have some competence in the legal arena, but in order to survive the multiple pitfalls which are inherent in any area of law, it is wise to consider “that which” must be proven, as opposed to the proof itself.
It is thus important, in preparing to formulate a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS, to review the statutes which govern the eligibility criteria for Federal and Postal employees; to read through the regulations; to research the case-laws as interpretive devices which can expand, constrict or regurgitate the statutory authority as written, as handed down by Administrative Judges at the Merit Systems Protection Board; then, upon a thorough and competent understanding of the legal criteria applicable in a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS, to begin to gather the “proof” which is necessary in order to satisfy and meet the legal criteria.
Only upon an understanding of the distinction between criteria and proof can one then proceed to gather the latter in order to satisfy the former. Early distinctions made can clarify and avoid later confusions encountered; or, as the age-old dictum goes, being penny wise is preferable to ending up pound foolish (or some variation thereof).
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: Eligibility Criteria | Tagged: attorney representing federal workers for disability throughout the united states, eligibility criteria for disability under fers and csrs laws, federal disability law blog, federal opm disability tips for non-lawyers, federal workers disability criteria, FERS disability retirement, fers disability retirement and the burden of proof concept, fers disability tips for the layman, going beyond the official eligibility criteria to get your application approved, meeting all of the critical elements and the opm's legal burden of proof, meeting the basic requirements or actually proving my fers disability claim, meeting the legal criteria fers and csrs disability retirement, nationwide representation of federal employees, opm disability legal criteria in the medical narrative documents, OPM disability retirement, opm disability retirement and pre-application considerations, owcp disability retirement, postal service disability retirement, proving your fers disability claim to meet the criteria, relevant criteria to choose the right medical documentation fers disability, the burden of proof concept in opm disability, the criteria-proof relationship in federal disability retirement, the non-lawyers' guide to opm disability law, the standard of proof, using pre-application time to obtain good medical documentation, USPS disability retirement, what do I have to do to get approved fers disability, when being eligible for fers disability is not enough |
postal worker need help