Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Options Unrealized

Is an option an option if it is unrealized?  “Unrealized”, of course, can have 2 different but subtle meanings — of not being known at all or — in a second sense — of known but just not actualized.  If a person is entirely unaware of an alternative course of action or a pathway delving into a different set of circumstances, can those other avenues be considered “options”?

They are, of course, options in a generic sense, but perhaps not yet individualized.  Take the following hypothetical: buried a foot below the ground is a hidden treasure, a trove of gold coins left behind by Spanish conquistadors many centuries before, now covered by layers of sediment and overgrown grass.

A detectorist (yes, from that cult-like following of a 3-series program) who has gone over the same ground multiple times, suddenly receives a positive signal of a potential find; stops, digs, and — becomes rich and famous.  When asked about it, he replies, “I had gone over the same area many times before and knew that something might be there, but didn’t want to realize my option because, to do so would then take the fun out of it.”  Huh?

Now, that person truly had an option — knowledge of a potential treasure and a choice to exercise the option to find it, but refraining from doing so.  Or, by contrast, the first-time detectorist who stumbles upon the same treasure trove at the first opportunity to cover that same ground — he had no “option”, but simply exercised it upon receiving a positive signal from his metal detector.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the options unrealized are often those that have never been told of, announced or even considered — like preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.

Perhaps your agency or the Postal Service never apprised you of the benefit of Federal Disability Retirement; or, perhaps you were once told but completely forgot.  In either case, the options unrealized are the ones that can do you harm, and it is only if you take the necessary steps to realized the unrealized options that it can do a person any good, and the first step towards realizing an option unrealized is to consult with an Attorney who specializes in that option yet to be realized: FERS Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire