Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: Sides (Part I)

Was there a time when moral order, social propriety and conventional codes of conduct were bifurcated in such clear and identifiable demarcations, such that everyone knew the rules and roles by which to abide?  Or were there always overlapping and invidious borders which constituted conditional conundrums?  Movies of the old west are still enjoyed today, if not merely for entertainment, then for the simplicity of identifying the differentiation between good and evil, where the grey dawn of loss of certitude is rarely implied.

People take “sides” each and every day, but the lack of verifiability in determining who stands for what, and what issues are truly worth standing up for, has become a problem of infinite and exponential magnification of wide and confusing latitudes. There are some things in life where privacy must be guarded with the utmost of heightened protective instincts. “Choosing sides” is something we all learned in school; how we choose, and what titers of alarms we utilize, is all the more important when it comes to personal integrity and future security.

For Federal and Postal employees contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, the question of who our friends are, will quickly surface during the process.  Identifying the adversary is thought to be an easy process; thinking that a supervisor or coworker is a “friend” to be relied upon, is a more daunting and dangerous endeavor.  That is where the confidentiality of an attorney can be helpful.

The beauty of old films and archaic cowboy movies, is that the black-and-white film footage clearly and unmistakably identifies the man in the white hat.  That is the “good guy”.  Within Federal agencies, such clear identification for the Federal or Postal Worker who begins the process of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, is a rare occasion.

Choosing sides is important.  How one chooses; whom to rely upon; what advice to follow; all are confusing conundrums within a complex world of backstabbers, betrayals, and agencies populated by those who seek to become the next Lady Macbeth.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM FERS/CSRS Disability Retirement: The Law & Life’s Pragmatic Reality

In a Federal Disability Retirement case, one of the ways to establish the nexus between one’s medical condition and the inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, is to show a “service deficiency”. But as most Federal and Postal employees systematically receive satisfactory or higher ratings of workplace appraisals, and are passed through without thought in order for managers and supervisors to avoid contentiousness and adversarial encounters with their employees, it is rare that anyone can show poor performance and tie such a service deficiency to one’s medical condition.

Does one need to go to the supervisor and point out the service deficiencies and ask that the supervisor rate him or her as sub-par?  No.

Does one have to grieve or contest a superior appraisal?  Again, the answer is, No.

The intersecting contradiction between law and life often manifests itself in such circular absurdities.  But how the law is read; the knowledge of a myopic understanding of the law without the greater context of the entirety of the evolution of case-law opinions and further expansive interpretation of the originating statute, can leave one to believe that the law makes no sense, and fails to reflect the pragmatic issues of reality.

Hint:  Most Federal and Postal employees do not have a service deficiency; but since Federal Disability Retirement rules, regulations and statutes require that one’s medical condition must last for a minimum of 12 months, does that mean that one must show a devastation of one’s work ethic for a full year before you can even file?  No.

The conflict between law and the pragmatic reality of life is merely an apparent one; once the truth is unraveled, there really is no conflict at all, internal, apparent, or otherwise, and Medical Retirement applications submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, in fact reflects the reality of life quite well.  One needs to merely figure out and think away any such apparent self-contradiction.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire