Responding to an OPM Disability Denial: The Mixed Case

Of course, it can be readily argued that every case is a “mixed” one — meaning thereby that the disability case itself cannot ever be merely based upon interpreting the facts presented (or, in the case specifically of a Federal or Postal Disability Retirement claim, interpreting the medical documentation), but necessarily includes case law and statutory criteria beyond the facts of the case.

That being so, it is all the more relevant to recognize that in a Federal Employee Disability Retirement case, mere recitation of the medical documentation does not resolve any differences of analysis.  OPM systematically either fails to recognize the applicable laws in denying the Federal or Postal employee’s application for Federal Disability Retirement, or acts as if they are an autocratic bureaucracy unrestricted and uninhibited by any statutory or judicial mandate of the governing laws.

The fact is that every Federal or Postal Disability Retirement case is a mixed case where the precedents of prior similar cases have rendered legal decisions impacting upon specific issues inherent in every disability retirement application, and the core disputes which arise rarely focus upon the medical documentation, but more often upon the legal interpretation arising from the application of the relevant laws upon the medical documentation.

That is why the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is so often wrong in their initial determination in denying a Federal Disability Retirement application — because the “medical specialists” at OPM are not lawyers and therefore are not conversant in the relevance and impact of the ever-growing body of laws governing Federal Disability Retirement.

That being said, in responding to a denial of a Federal or Postal Disability Retirement claim by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it is important to always respond with the force of the law and to continually remind OPM that their failure to approve your case is not merely a difference of analytical opinion, but is a clear and blatant violation of the applicable laws governing the issues concerning your Federal Disability Retirement application.

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 under FERS: The Price We Pay

We don’t.  It used to be.  Not anymore.  Or, at least, not much.  Time was, if a military officer fraternized with an enlisted individual, the officer’s career was all but over.  Or, ages ago, if a CEO of a company divorced, there was a price to pay.  Hollywood stars took great pains to hide their infidelities, for the “public image” was all-important.

What price do we pay, these days?  Are there any restrictions, any constraints, any boundaries?

We criticize China because of their authoritarian state, but can you imagine what kind of country it would be if a country with 1.4 billion people had the homelessness population we have, the rate of suicide we have, the extent of mass shootings we have, the extent of mental health crisis we have, etc.?  It is all well and good to tout “freedom”, but at what price?

Freedom and liberty are all well and good, but they work only within the context of responsibilities and shared obligations, which we no longer believe in.  In this post-factual world, where the words one proffer need not match the actions one engages in, there is no price to pay.  If you do something wrong, you merely need to disappear for a while and reinvent yourself.

For Federal workers and U.S. Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, however, the price you pay is by your health.  The stresses of modernity, the health issues which magnify and become exacerbated with age, the deterioration into chronicity when once a medical condition was thought to be manageable — these are the basis of being eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the Office of Personnel Management under FERS.

Contact a FERS Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, exclusively, and consider the price you have paid, and the price which OPM and the government should pay you in order to compensate you for your loyalty.

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.

 

FERS Medical Retirement: Between the Particular and the Universal

There is always a distance between the particular and the universal.  In syllogistic logic, a universal can never be derived from a major and minor premise proposing particulars.

You cannot argue that because Harry down the street wears blue pants, and Joseph next door wears green pants, that therefore the whole world wears either green or blue pants.  You can, however, argue that Since all men are mortal, and Socrates is a man, that therefore Socrates is mortal — deriving a universal from a Major Premise which is universal, a minor premise which is particular, and ending with a conclusion which is universal.

Effective conversations often go that route — between “kitchen-table talk” and more generalized conversations which avoid the particulars, lest such personalized conversations lead to acrimonious, seemingly-confrontational and unpleasant exchanges.  Talks with your kids have to thread the fine line between accusatory admonitions and seemingly harmless, more generalized analogies.  That’s why the Bible cautions one not to provoke one’s children; for, overly particularized conversations become too uncomfortably provocative.

There is thus the twilight between the particular and the universal, and for Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who want to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, a fine line and a delicate balance must be implicated between the chasm separating the particular and the universal.

What is identified as the Twilight between the two must be cautiously maneuvered through.  Too much information in the particular can defeat a Federal Medical Retirement case.  Overly emphasizing the universal — the statutes and the laws governing every Federal Disability Retirement case — without the backdrop of the particulars of one’s medical conditions, can likewise defeat a Federal or Postal Service Disability Retirement claim.  That delicate balance must be achieved — of the Twilight Between the Particular and the Universal.

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and thread the delicate line within the Twilight between the Particular and the Universal.

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.

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Maintenance of Sanity

Is that what life has become?

One comes into the world with sanity (for most), and the fight throughout one’s life is to try and retain and maintain that semblance of cognitive equilibrium.  We tend to think, in modernity, that there are certain “basic rights” which apply to all human beings — a minimum level of subsistence; that one should be allowed a place to live, some food to eat, etc.

A short review of history, however — even on a superficial level — readily and easily reveals that the greater lot of humanity suffered tremendously for centuries untold; that most were either in the peasant or serf class, and the daily struggle just to obtain food for survival constituted the primary focus for most.

Once a system of “middle class” standards were invented, where some leisure time allowed for engagements beyond mere subsistence living, hobbies and pastimes involving entertainment, reading, pleasurable distractions and thoughts involving preludes to abstractions became more and more available to a greater number of people.  To a point where, in modernity, in current times and circumstances, it is less the physical health which most people are concerned with, but rather, the cognitive unhealthiness in a stress-filled society.

Maintenance of sanity has become the mainstay of modern living; focus upon one’s mental health, of greater necessity.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who have struggled and recognized the progressive deterioration of one’s mental/nervous health — of Major Depressive Disorder; PTSD, Uncontrollable panic attacks; Schizophrenia; Bipolar Disorder; etc. — do not let the U.S. Office of Personnel Management fool you into thinking that Mental Disorders are somehow second-class citizens to Physical Ailments; in the law, they are to be treated as co-equals in the validity of evaluating disabling medical conditions.

Contact a Federal Lawyer who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law, and begin to initiate the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under the FERS retirement system, for purposes of the valid maintenance of sanity.

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.

 

Federal Disability Retirement Help: Adumbration

It is a vague foreshadowing for future events — often a sense of unease, a non-specific feeling of dire foreboding, or when someone says, “I cannot put my finger upon it but…”.

It is when your dog acts skittish, but you don’t quite know why until some unexpected event occurs, and you pause and wonder, “Was he trying to forewarn me?”  Or what the Native Americans in tradition and mythology could foretell because of their intimate connection to the behavioral psychology of birds, deer, other animals, etc., and even of rocks and boulders which shimmered some secretive reflection of nature’s future unease.

Adumbration is the sense of knowing without being specific; of an intimate connection to one’s context, but where context is now merely a shadowy doubt no longer ensconced upon the altar of Man’s worshipping misgivings.  Are you a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal Worker?  Are your medical conditions becoming an adumbration of a future yet uncertain?

One’s future cannot flourish, let alone merely continue, in one’s Federal or Postal job, precisely when there exists an incompatibility between one’s medical conditions and one’s Federal or Postal positional duty requirements.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider whether or not the adumbrations revealed in the symptomatologies one experiences is not the basis of a viable Federal Disability Retirement case.

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.

 

Federal Medical Retirement: Eager Wishes and Little Thoughts

We all have them both, don’t we?  Of eager wishes: We wish for wealth; we wish for fame; we wish for friendship; we wish for love.  Wishes project us; they compel us; they motivate, even though such wishful thinking may never become fulfilled.  And so they remain little thoughts — “little” in the sense that they remain mere thoughts, mere wishes, with little chance for fulfillment.

It is often the little thoughts which loom large, if only because they reflect the fundamental needs and desires of most everyone.  Perhaps it is those little thoughts combined with eagerness which results in unfulfilled dreams and hopes, when the imagination expands beyond the monotony of our lives and we become sustained by the little thoughts, prompted by those eager wishes.

Much of life is a negation; of not having, of never fulfilling, of rarely achieving; and yet, when it comes to children, we fill their heads with grand dreams of illusory abstentions.  We tell them, “You can be whatever you want to be” or “live out your dreams”.  No wonder that cynicism easily and readily dominates in early life; and so the eager wishes and little thoughts replace the fairytales we tell our children, if merely to sustain their lives within the containment of reality.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a health condition such that the health condition necessitates preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under the Federal Employees’ Retirement System (FERS) through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it may well be that the eager wish is to cease the madness encircling you between the disabling medical condition and your inability to perform all of the basic elements of your job.

It may seem like a “little thought” to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, and your eagerness may be restricted by the daunting task of engaging a monster of a bureaucracy like the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  But do not despair; such an eager wish upon a little thought may be attained through the assistance of a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Contact a disability attorney who exclusively does Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin to advance your eager wishes of the little thoughts which make for life’s sustenance.

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.

 

Federal Disability Retirement Legal Assistance: Presentation

The appearance of the speaker; the manner in which he or she conducts him/herself; but in the end, it is the content and substantive presentation which will determine the course of success or failure — of whether the audience will yawn with boredom, throw things at the speaker, or worse yet — merely fall asleep through boredom and disinterestedness.

“Presentation” thus encapsulates and requires both appearance and substance, demeanor and delivery, confidence and content, tone and subject matter.  Knowing the subject matter; being able to argue persuasively; preemptively answering queries which may arise during the course of the deliverance of information.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition no longer allows for the Federal or Postal worker to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the paper-presentation in preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, under FERS, is the important first step — the first impression and presentation — on the road to a successful administrative and bureaucratic process.

Don’t mess it up.

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and make sure that the presentation is presentable and effective.

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.

 

Postal & Federal Employee Medical Retirement: The Bumpy Road Ahead

Life is always a rough-hewn piece of wood; and yes, while the grains may possess and reveal beauty, and sanding or polishing may bring out the inner, granular quality which depicts the artistry of nature, still — the bumpy road ahead remains just around the corner.

Sometimes, you see two young people in a cafe gazing dreamily into each other’s eyes, and you have to resist going up to them, slapping them gently over their heads in order to awaken them from the unreality of the moment.  Or, perhaps the better approach is to leave things alone — as life is full of problems and disappointments, let them have their respite of escape from the harshness of reality.

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 his or her Federal or Postal job, the bumpy road ahead likely includes the fight against the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in getting a FERS Disability Retirement application approved.

It is always a fight.  And like the rough-hewn piece of wood, it takes hard work to get past the splinters and obstacles before the “beauty” part can be reached.  Contact a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and let the specialist handle the bumpy road ahead.

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.

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Control Over

There are certain things we have control over; others, merely a spattering of influence; and still others, none at all.

It is often a dictum of life that “happiness” is the capacity to recognize those very categories over which we have control, and those where we have absolutely no control over.  Why?  Because frustration erupts or otherwise builds up around our attempt to maintain control over that which we have absolutely no control over.

Babies and toddlers, we have quite a bit of control over; teenagers, merely some exerted influence; but of adult children who wish to go their own way and ignore the experience of past generations — we have absolutely no control over.  We have limited control over the car we drive — but no control over idiot-other-drivers who also occupy the roads.  We have absolutely no control over the paradigmatic metaphor of sitting atop a mountain and watching two trains below heading at a high rate of speed towards one another on the same railroad track — and it is here that one’s frustration can overwhelm us.

Medical conditions, likewise, are something which we have no control over.  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement under FERS through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management because of a medical condition — well, that is something we have some control over, and it is often helpful to hire an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law in order to exert some greater control over a bureaucratic process which may at first light appear arbitrary, capricious and without any logical sense.

Now, that is the very definition of frustration — of a process which you have no control over, and that is the reason why you should contact a lawyer who specializes in the process of Federal Disability Retirement.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Disability Retirement: Complications

In the early morning hours, he entered his workshop and began the day.  His assistant, Archie, would not come for a few more hours.  It was still dark.  The twilight of that crescent moment, where the refracted light touched softly upon the edges of the far mountains; and for a moment, he wondered whether it was evening or early morning.

Could he have gone through the day and not have a memory?  Or had he slept some and awoken later than he thought?  A murmur – his dog, laying by his side, was softly snoring.  “Complications”, he muttered under his breath.  But at least he knew by the behavior of his dog that it was morning, and not evening.

Life is, indeed, full of complications.  Whether of challenges met throughout the day, of personal and professional relationships which have to be managed — and when medical conditions begin to creep into our lives, we mutter to ourselves — “Complications”.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing all of the essential or basic elements of one’s Federal or Postal position, it may be time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

And, like the snippet above extracted from a short story, complications can occur throughout, and it is the OPM Federal Lawyer who will be able to address those complications, whether in the early morning hours or late in the evening.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer