It is like a Jonathan Franzen novel (apologies to those who are fans of his), as opposed to a Hemingway masterpiece (is the bias too obvious by merely connecting “novel” to the first writer as opposed to “masterpiece” to the second?). The fluff is fairly obvious. Pages after pages of meandering nothingness, wondering where the story is going, what the plot is, why it is that one is trying to make one’s way through a long and meaningless road?
The appearance of substance is always a problem. How does one gauge it? It is like the old adage of throwing away good money after bad — after a long investment of time in trying to read it, you hate to give up before you get to the end.
OPM denials in a FERS Disability Retirement case often “feels” like that — of long extrapolated regurgitations from medical records, then at the end, a mere statement: “It has not been shown that you suffer from a medical condition which prevents you from performing the essential elements of your position”.
So, either one of two things is going on: Either the previously-quoted extrapolations self-evidently speak form themselves, or the OPM Medical Specialist simply wants an appearance of substance without having to explain or discuss the relevance of the extrapolated paragraphs. Volume is not the same as substance; just compare a balloon as opposed to a boulder sitting atop a mountain in Colorado.
For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have received a denial from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for his or her Federal Disability Retirement application, contact an OPM Medical Retirement Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider that the appearance of substance is no substitute for a substantive legal rebuttal.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill
Lawyer exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
OPM Disability Retirement, Et Cetera… 