If a Federal or Postal Employee files for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, remember that: (A) You are not required to stop working, as most people for economic necessity continue to work, and (B) If you stop working, and you are not using your Sick Leave or Annual Leave, but are out on LWOP, remember that once you obtain an approval for your Federal Disability Retirement, that back-pay will be paid all the way back to your “last day of pay”, and not to the last day you “worked”.
In other words, if you are out on LWOP for three months (as a hypothetical), and on the day before you are approved for your OPM Disability Retirement, you receive a paycheck from your Agency for 1 hour of SL or AL, then you have lost all of the potential “back pay” of the three months on LWOP, because the “last day of pay” was the day just before your Federal Disability Retirement was approved. Be careful that this does not happen. While donated leave is often accepted because of economic necessity, you will likely regret accepting such payment once your Federal Disability Retirement application is approved.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: Clarifications of Laws or Rules, LWOP and Sick Leave in OPM Disability, When the OPM Application Is Approved | Tagged: a word of warning to federal workers with workers comp and disability issues, at least one case where federal worker shouldn't accept donated leave, civil service disability, CSRS disability retirement federal attorney, disability retirement at the USPS, disability retirement for federal employees, do I have to stop working after I apply for opm disability benefits?, excessive sick leave in federal employment for legitimate illness, exhausting sick leave because of injury or illness, extended sick leave for us federal workers, federal disability attorney, federal disability law blog, federal employment -- one small warning about using donated leave, federal employment and turning leave without pay (lwop) into cash, FERS disability retirement, FERS medical retirement, filing for OPM disability retirement, from sick leave to lwop to owcp to opm to financial survival, injured federal workers turning 'lwop' in a new 'life with opportunities', injured postal workers don't have to quit their jobs to file for disability, is there a requirement to stop working after turning in opm disability application?, legal representation for injured federal workers, light at the end of the tunnel, long or extended lwop while working for the us government, medical benefits for federal employees, medical issues and making sense out of your lwop (leave without pay), nationwide representation of federal employees, OPM disability application tips and strategies, OPM disability lawyer, OPM disability retirement, Post Office disability, postal employees and turning lwop into a paid annuity, Postal Service disability, question about qualifying for disability after quitting the usps, questions about back pay after your opm disability application is approved, quitting the usps, representing federal employees from any us government agency, representing federal employees in and outside the country, resources for injured federal workers, retroactive payments for medical reasons while still working in the federal sector, running out of sick leave while working at the usps, should I resign for my federal job after I apply for federal workers disability compensation?, the postal service and when fmla is not enough, the us postal service and turning lwop into cash, using excessive sick leave while in federal employment, using lwop when running out of sick or annual leave, USPS disability retirement benefits, when lwop finally works almost as well as al or sl, when lwop is not so bad, when using lwop (leave without pay) finally turns into a blessing, will I have to quit working right away after I formally apply for opm disability benefits?, will I receive back pay from the time I was qualified for opm disability?, will the opm back pay me all these months I was on disability?, working in the postal service even with a disability | 2 Comments »
OPM Disability Retirement 