Disability Retirement for U.S. Federal Government Employees: Context, Sequence & Connections

Often, a potential applicant for Federal Disability Retirement will insist that the origin of the medical condition or injury is important to annotate, for one reason or another.  Unlike OWCP issues, origin and causation is usually of little or no significance in a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether under FERS or CSRS.  Thus, for OWCP Disability, it may be of importance to show that X injury was caused by occupational hazard Y; or that, while on the job on a certain date, the applicant slipped and fell, etc.  In proving OWCP Disability, such “incident-specific” facts are important in establishing causation, in order to determine eligibility and entitlement to OWCP Disability benefits.

For purposes of OPM Disability, however, the Federal or Postal worker who is seeking Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the Office of Personnel Management, does not have to establish such incident-specific facts.  Rather, the focus shifts upon the medical condition, the symptoms, and the impact upon those medical medical conditions and symptoms upon one’s inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, within the last year.  While it may be that some factual context is significant by way of showing a sequence of events from the past, in order to show how the medical condition worsened over time, OPM normally does not care about such historical facts.  While the history of X is interesting, what occurs in the recent-to-present timeframe is what interests OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Disability Retirement: The Law and Language

Language is the playground of the Attorney.  It is the heart and soul of his or her profession.  Through language, the attorney describes, delineates, argues, and provides a sequential (hopefully) rebuttal and attack upon any attempt by the “opposing” forces or the named “adversary” to undermine one’s logically structured application — in this case, an application for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS.  While logic and argumentation are the chosen methodology of attack, it is the stringing of descriptive words to create concepts; the sequencing of concepts in order to provide complex compounds of winning arguments; and the totality of language in order to convey meaning, persuade and bring about agreement. 

In Administrative Law arenas, especially in the law of Federal Disability Retirement, it is especially important to have the ability to describe, delineate, argue and persuade — because the package of persuasion is in written format — and the reader (a claims clerk at the Office of Personnel Management) does not know the disability retirement applicant personally, and only comes to know the issues, the person, the medical condition, and the intertwining compexity of the medical condition upon the person, through the words which are put together.  As such, how a Federal Disability Retirement packet is put together, which words are chosen, too few, too many, and what definitional arrows are meant to be conveyed, not only comprise part of a Federal Disability Retirement application; in many ways, it comprises the entirety of the process.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire