FERS Disability Law: The MSPB and Consistency of Argumentation

Is it even important, anymore?  Lawyers, of course, are notorious for making alternate arguments, presenting to a Judge or a Jury different explanations, alternative legal theories and justifications, often within the span of a single sentence, and even sometimes contradicting each other.

It is only when the contradiction occurs within the confines of a single theory that the Judge may say, “Wait, counsel — hoooooold on there!  Are you trying to argue X and Not-X at the same time?”  The answer by the clever lawyer: “No, your honor, I am merely pointing out that X could be, and Not-X is also credible, leaving my client to appear not only as an innocent bystander but, moreover, a not-guilty one as well!”

In some forums, that may hold; but in a Federal Disability Retirement case, the only way that inconsistency of argumentation works is when an OPM Medical Specialist says so.  OPM denies cases systematically without any regard to consistency of argumentation.  This is because there is no accountability at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  They can review a case, deny it, and it is out of the hands of the Medical Specialist who made the decision.

Then, at the Reconsideration Stage, a completely different Medical Specialist will make a brand new determination, based upon his or her own perspective and viewpoint, and it need not have any consistency of argumentation with the previous decision.

Fortunately, however, when it goes before an Administrative Judge at the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, Consistency of Argumentation becomes an important factor.  For, that is one of the primary basis upon which an MSPB Federal Disability Retirement case is lost — when consistency of argumentation based upon the evidence becomes questionable.

Inconsistency is the downfall of most cases at the MSPB; consistency — even with less than adequate evidence of a compelling nature — will often overcome much, and win the case.  The one thing that Administrative Law Judges at the MSPB dislike above all else: Inconsistency in testimony, Inconsistency in evidence, and Inconsistency in the closing argument of an attorney.

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 Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: Liars

Do saints or angels exist?  That question necessarily implicates a further query: Are there beings in the universe who have never lied?

Of course, we do make the conceptual distinction between “a person who lies” and “a liar”.  The former refers to all of us; for, of whatever reasons justifying it or in defining the concept of a “lie”, we all must admit that we have engaged in the act at one time or another — unless, of course, we deem ourselves to be either an angel or a saint.  As for the latter — it refers to and implicates not a person who may lie every now and again, but rather one whose reputation is that of a chronically dishonest person.

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 one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the problem of liars becomes an inherent, regular part of the Federal Disability Retirement process.  For some reason, Federal Agencies, Supervisors, managers, H.R. Representatives, etc. — all seem to engage in and bring out the worst within a context of lying.

Why such fervency of opposition, as if a person’s disability retirement application must be opposed, and therefore memories falter, resistance intensifies — is it because people simply do not like the idea of someone else gaining a benefit?

Whatever the reason, liars must be countered with the force of truth, and that is where a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer who has the experience of trial work, cross examination and articulation of legal argumentation is important to engage.  Contact an experienced Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer and prepare yourself to counter the lies that will surely come about, unless, of course, you believe that your Agency or Postal facility is full of saints and angels.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Medical Retirement: Muddling Through

That is how most of us cope with the complexities of life.  It has been said that competence in anything doesn’t actually take fruition until a person has been doing it for at least 2 decades or more.  In the meantime, “muddling through” is how most of us spend the day; “acting as though”, practicing “as if”, winging it, pretending to be so, trying to appear as such and such, etc.

Yes, apprenticeship is an old-fashioned idea which no longer applies — at least in a formal manner.  Yet, we all continue to remain in the role of an apprentice, muddling through life, through our jobs and through the course of our lifetimes, until one day we realize that we have reached a point of competence where things come second nature, where insight is more often the rule than the exception, and where success follows upon success more often than not.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and where the medical condition impacts the Federal or Postal employee’s ability and capacity to remain competent in one’s job and position, medical disability retirement may be the best way to go out.  We all muddle through, but when you have a medical condition that impacts your ability to get through the day, even “muddling through” may sap your energy so severely that you can no longer function.

If this describes you, consult with an attorney who specializes in the area of Federal Disability Retirement, and consider preparing an effective FERS Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Benefits: The Seams of Life

Historically, the Taylor was an important member of a community, in a time prior to mass production, machine-made clothes and store-bought dresses.  Of course, people were much more self-reliant in past centuries, and so we stitched and yarned, grew things for our own consumption and rarely disposed of things until their utility wore out beyond their intended use.

The seam was important — for, it was the master craftsman (or woman) who made it appear as if it didn’t exist at all.  Think about the anomaly: The best craftsman (again, “or woman”) was the one who brought two pieces of material and put them together, but in a way that you couldn’t even tell that they were once two separate pieces.

Thus do we have our manners of speech: “That was a seamless presentation”; “It seems that the seams of society are coming apart”; and the one noted herein: “The seams of life” — referring to those social stitches that keep our society together.

The seams of life are those threads which maintain the integrity of social order: customs, traditions, basic courtesies and norms, however fragile or thin, in whatever state of consistency or disrepair; and in this time of tumult and chaos, it often seems that the seams of life are beginning to fray.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s job, the seams of life may appear to be coming apart in one’s personal life because of the impact of one’s own deteriorating health.  When that happens, you may want to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.

Consult with a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and see whether or not you can stitch back up the fraying seams of life, where it sometimes seems that the seams of life are seemingly coming apart at the seams.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Stifling rationalism

Although it may no longer show in modernity, it was the dominant methodology accepted as reflecting the Aristotelian belief that man is essentially a rational animal, and thus the general approach towards reaching conclusions should embrace the perspective that the criterion of truth is based upon not sensory, but intellectual and deductive foundations.

But if the thought process fails to utilize the formal laws governing deductive reasoning, and nobody reads Russell or Quine, anyway, what is the difference?  Is it merely an appendage to the conclusion reached, by declaring, “That’s the only logical way to think about this!” – and if we add the exclamation point, state it with a clear and loud voice, does that make it so? What is the distinction to be made, from a valuation or validation viewpoint, between decisions and judgments rendered based upon empirical evidence, deductive or logical reasoning, a combination of both or all three, and the contrast as against an “emotional” basis for reaching conclusions?

If an individual engages in complex futures trading on the stock market, for example, and bases such transactional activities upon unscientific methodologies, is it not the success of the venture (i.e., a retrospective judgment on the matter) that will ultimately determine the success or failure of each approach?

Take the hypothetical of the following: Securities and futures trading can now be done with a laptop from home, and we have Jim, Nancy and Deborah, each of whom thinks that he or she constitutes the brilliance of Wall Street’s best and brightest (though none have had any prior experience but are engaged in vocations far and distant from anything to do with it).

Jim looks at the relevant newspaper quotations and likes the way the numbers coalesce, and makes the trade based upon that comforting sensory impression.  Nancy, in a different state and unbeknownst to Jim, has been pouring over the numbers, calculating, looking at the history of past performances, and creates an algorithm founded upon a calculus of probabilities, and pushes that computer button to deplete one’s bank account based upon mathematical precision that approaches some semblance of certainty, but never quite.  And Deborah, well, she possesses on this day a certain “instinctive” feeling about a particular futures trade, and proceeds entirely upon this emotional response.  Of the three, whom do we consider as validated, worthy of following or respecting of methodologies?

If Deborah were to increase her portfolio by, say, 500%, and Jim merely breaks even but Nancy loses her proverbial shirt, would we dismiss it by thinking, “Ah, just pure luck”?  On the other hand, if Jim were to make a nominal profit, Nancy were to obtain significant returns, and it was Deborah who lost everything, would it change our attitudes and confirm the notion that rationalism prevailed because it is the only valid approach to life’s complexities?

The acceptance of rationalism is inevitable for the rational animal; elevating it to a status where all other approaches are stifled, however, can ignore the spectrum of other dimensions just as valid in human life.

For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it may be that “rationality” cautions one to remain in the Federal or Postal job because of job security and financial stability.

But there are other considerations, as well, such as an instinctive will to survive; and when stifling rationalism quiets the voice of health’s call to safety, it may well be time to consider preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The importance of seeing a way out

The strategic approach of allowing for a route of retreat is well-known; by providing an exit option, casualties are lessened and the proportional ferocity of battle often parallels the availability or non-existence of such a pathway out.

Cornered animals behave in the same way – and why would they not?  Do we think that we are somehow exempt from the genetic predisposition of Darwinian inherency?  And the cornered enemy who sees no exit – with the final bullet retained for self-annihilation, the option of surrender not a reality for the traitorous residue to such an act, or of the potential for torture and mutilation naturally following revenge upon actions taken previously; or a kamikaze-like final hurrah met with a hail of bullets; it is the importance of seeing a way out, that often determines the course of future conduct.

That is how the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal Service worker views the benefit of a Federal Disability Retirement:  as the “way out” of an otherwise untenable future course.  Without it, the options are often:  Die trying to get to work each day; resign with nothing to show for the many years of investing in one’s career in the Federal sector or the U.S. Postal Service.

What is so interesting in engaging Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers for multiple decades, now, is the singular and unassailable fact that is contrary to the misperception held by the general public:  Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers are among the most dedicated of workforce servants, putting in long and uncompensated hours beyond what they are required, and never wanting to take the “exit option” but for the chronic and severe nature of a rising and debilitating medical condition.  And, how many who obtain a Federal Disability Retirement annuity go on into the private sector and “pay back” into the very system from which they are being compensated the Disability Retirement annuity?  Many, if not most.

Without the benefit of Federal Disability Retirement, many would struggle and ultimately lose the battle either with the agency or the Postal Service, or with the medical condition itself.  Even with the benefit of a Federal Disability Retirement annuity, the pay is not so enticing as to encourage any mass exodus via the vehicle of a Federal Disability Retirement benefit, and it is only because of the progressively deteriorating nature of a medical condition that finally impels and compels the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker to take that exit option, and to seek to reach a plateau of rehabilitative serenity such that a further career or vocation in the private sector could be possible.

In the end, like enemies in a fierce firefight, the importance of seeing a way out is just as relevant to the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, as it is to the kamikaze warrior who tightens the band of fate by an emblematic headscarf in preparation for the final battle.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Comfort in regularity

There are those who relish the seas of daily change and the excitement of altered circumstances in daily discourse.  But as the rhythms of a seasonal perpetuity teach us of Nature’s need for regularity, so the biorhythms imparted can often form avenues of predictable patterns.  There is comfort in regularity (no, for those with singular minds, we are not here referring to the constancy of utilizing bathroom facilities; although, there is also some truth in that perspective, as well); of engaging in the monotony of expectations, unchanging circumstances and boredom of daily redundancy.

If we interpreted Bishop Berkeley’s philosophy to the extreme, each time we were to leave a room, the physical world we left behind would vanish; upon our re-entrance into the “same” room, it would again materialize, but who knows if the armchair in the corner with the slight tear in the seam of the cushion has not been moved several inches to one side or the other?

Wasn’t that always the fear in Star Trek, when Scotty would push the lever for the transporter, and the molecular deconstruction of the individual would occur – but the danger involved the potential interference within that short timeframe, when the reconstitution of matter might bring about a missing limb, a lesser intellect, or leave on the dinner table in the previous location one’s eyes, nose or mouth?  But the digression into science fiction merely points out the obvious; whether via molecular transporter or physically walking from one room into another, the expectation of “sameness” is what we rely upon, in order to maintain a sanity which otherwise would be lost in a sea of constant change.

It is, ultimately, the paradigmatic confrontation between the age-old perspective of two old philosophical grouches – of Parmenides and Heraclitus; of permanence seen in a world of a singular whole as opposed to the constancy of an ever-changing universe.  Note that, in either perspective, there is a regularity that is sought and discovered:  the expectation of consistent change constitutes that regularity we seek; and the regularity of a singularity of permanence reinforces that comfort in the same.  That is what we forever sought and continue to seek – and it is in the comfort of regularity that we maintain our balanced perspective.

That is why the turmoil of change is often devastating for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position.  The inability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties is frustrating enough; such alterations often require accommodations, but when such requests are rejected, it is like a verdict upon one’s worth by the agency or the Postal facility:  You are not worth the trouble of change.

Yet, that change or alteration in the schedule, flexibility of attendance, or other minor adjustments, are often of no greater effort by the Agency than Scotty pushing the lever to initiate the power of the transporter.  But, then, Captain Kirk was quite good at making adjustments and ad-libbing as he went along – something that most Federal agencies and the Postal Service are unable to do; and that is when preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application becomes an ever-present need that will ensure the comfort in regularity of purpose, goals and future security.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirements: This cold and impervious universe

Of course, the title is more akin to Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, as opposed to an interventionist deity of a personal nature.  Yet, even of the latter, the question of whether any real influence can be gotten, or whether fate had already predetermined the course of future actions, is certainly debatable.  If one ‘appeals’ to the guidance of a personal idol, but hears nothing, is there any distinguishable distinction to be made from that of a prime move, unperturbed by cries of tragic consequences?

Aside from the metaphysical queries, the view that we live in a cold and impervious universe is one of unaccountable ‘feelings’; and while one’s emotional response may not correlate with the firmer foundation of logical analysis, there is little basis for undermining the validity of such conclusions any more than arriving at it from a systematic rejection of a metaphysical argument.  Both approaches are equally valid, and the former may be more so, given the experiential reinforcements by most through anecdotal evidence.

That wars in foreign lands devastating entire communities, decimating whole cities and making refugees of innocent children and bystanders who merely want to live a quiet life, cannot be denied.

Closer to home, of antiseptic neighborhoods in classical suburbia – that quintessential cauldron of “phoniness” rejected by Holden Caulfield in his magnum opus, The Catcher in the Rye.  Here, where communities are defined by fences and self-imposed solitary confinement, the only time we open our doors is when an ambulance or other disturbing intrusions forces us to gawk with concern for another neighbor quietly being transported to an unknown facility of no-return.

And for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition has come to a critical point where performing the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties becomes an incommensurability beyond mere difficulty, but a reality that can no longer be hidden – the conclusion that this is a cold and impervious universe is merely heightened by the uncaring unresponsiveness of the Federal or Postal employee’s agency and its co-conspirators.

The legal terms are always bandied about:  “Accommodations”; “FMLA protection”; “allowance for being on LWOP”; and other such mechanisms; but truth be told, the agency and the U.S. Postal Service merely wants to shed itself, as soon as possible, of any employee who dares to whisper the heretical utterance:  “I am suffering, and need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.”

In the end, it is the law itself that allows for the benefit of Federal Disability Retirement, whether the Federal employee or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, that gives one pause, for the benefit itself is at least one counterpoint to the question of whether this world we live in is entirely a cold and impervious universe.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire