FERS Medical Retirement from OPM: Back to Basics

Aristotle always refers back to foundational principles — back to ‘first principles’, or to the basics of life.   And so we must always keep that in mind too, even in — or especially when — filing a Disability Retirement application under the FERS retirement system with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Yes, there are always a multiplicity of ancillary issues involved — of Agency efforts for accommodating the employee, of the character of a proposed separation of the Federal or Postal employee, and the subsequent invocation of the Bruner Presumption.  But in the end, it goes back to the first principles — the medical condition itself.  What are the symptoms; what is it about the condition itself which makes it inherently incompatible with the essential duties of the position; what is it about the incompatible nature of the condition that OPM fails to appreciate?

The health condition itself — that devastating failure of the body and/or the mind which profoundly alters one’s chosen career, character, and life.  How much more ‘basic’ can it get?

One’s career is often inseparable from one’s self-identity and consumes a greater proportion of time than most any other activity.  Yes, yes, we give lip service, to ‘family-time’ and ‘leisure time’, etc. but the reality is that we expend most of our own energies in pursuing our careers, and that is why when an injury, illness, or disability hits us, it has devastating consequences.  And so it must begin with the foundation of the first principle — of the basic medical condition, and from there — to build from it.

Of course those issues which OPM takes advantage of — the ancillary concepts of Agency accommodations, of applying relevant case law and preemptively addressing those pitfalls which OPM seems to take pleasure in forming the basis of a denial, but that all begins with the basic understanding of those first principles — the originating medical condition itself.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who suffer from a medical condition and need to file for Federal Disability Retirement under FERS with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, those overlooked first principles must be the originating source in compiling an effective FERS Disability Retirement application.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement under FERS, and consider whether beginning from the “basics” may be in fact the best way to start.

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 from OPM: Identification

It is through identification that constancy is maintained.  When we look in the mirror in the morning, we identify that reflected individual as the same person whom we knew a decade before — despite the greying hairs, the tributaries of creases and wrinkles; we brush the gray and wash the rivulets, and turn away knowing that our identity of today is the same as before.

Similarly, when we recognize a childhood friend from long ago, we greet him or her through identification.  We might say flattering (and perhaps somewhat untrue) things like, “You haven’t changed a bit!”  Or: “Gosh, you look great!”  In either and both cases, it is the identification itself which establishes the constancy of life.

One does not sever that constancy by pointing out the changes — of saying, “Wait a minute.  You didn’t have those wrinkles, and you were just a skinny little guy when I knew you 20 years ago.  You are not the same person, and therefore I do not know you!”  Such failure of identification — would it be true, or not?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition  no longer allows you to continue in your choice of career with the Federal Government, always remember that identification still exists and constancy may yet be maintained — the only change is not in the person, but the incompatibility between that same person and the job which one has.

You will remain the same person — albeit with a medical condition.  The change is not in you, but in the fact that the job you hold is no longer compatible with the you of today, of the same identification with the you of yesterday.

Contact a FERS Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider the constancy of your identification for your future of tomorrow.

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 Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: The Before & After

In once sense, there can always be the identifiable spectrum bifurcated into the “before” and “after”, and the conditions, the context and the significant differences characterized by each.  There is the time “before” the 1929 stock market crash, and then the “after”.  There is the “before” period in Nazi Germany, and the “after” timeframe subsequent to defeat.  There is “before” television and “after”; there is the time period before X-presidency and after, and before the advent of the computer, the laptop, the smart phone, etc. — and after.

How can we identify and bifurcate based upon relevant contexts?  For example, one can point to the legendary bank robbers — of “Bonnie and Clyde”, “Pretty Boy Floyd”, “Baby Face Nelson”, etc. — and it is much fun to watch movies romanticizing such characters.  But how would they fare today in the era of cellphones and electronic tracking devices, modern technologies of security apparatus, etc.?  Could a person “get away” these days using the same tactics and strategies, or would any of the famous bank robbers have been smart enough to change tactics and adapt to this world of technological intrusion? Are the old bank robbers of “before” the new cyberspace hackers of “after”?

Before the Great Dust Bowl and the Depression was a country that was mostly agrarian and independent of the Federal Government; after, we became a nation where the greater populace looked to a more centralized nation.  Good or bad, we tend to view contexts upon a spectrum of “before” and “after”, and the same is true of individual lives.  “How” we view it all depends upon which events we consider as significant enough to posit as the bifurcating dividing point that separates the “before” and the “after”.

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 one’s Federal or Postal job, the “before” is quite simple: Before the onset of the medical condition.  It is the “after” that becomes problematic, and filing for Federal Disability Retirement is the next step in completing the process of the “after” so that you can go on to the next phase of your life and make the “after” the next “before” in a life that doesn’t remain stuck in the “before” of one’s medical condition.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Answering the question

What constitutes “answering the question”, and more importantly, how does one determine when its opposite occurs — NOT answering the question?  Does the former occur if the questioner fails to follow up, and does the latter become an issue if the person asking responds with, “That doesn’t answer my question,” or some such similar declarative assertion?

Take the following hypothetical:  Person A asks Person B, “So, where do you come from?”  Person B answers, “The skies of Normandy were grey on that June day in 1944.”  Now, Person A could have various responses to such a statement, as in:  1.  “No, no, I asked where you came from.” 2. “Are you telling me that you come from Normandy, France?”  3.  “That doesn’t answer my question.”  4. Or, silence, with no follow-up.

Person B, of course, could similarly respond in variegated ways, as in:  A.  “I just told you.”  B.  “Yes” or “No” (in response to the follow-up question, “Are you telling me that you come from Normandy, France?”).  C.  Silence, or “Yes it does.”  D.  Nothing further.

It may be that Person B simply has a poetic bent, and from his perspective, the mundane query was answered in a metaphorical, literary manner.  More to the point, however:  Who determines if a question has been answered (leaving aside the further query of whether the answer itself has “sufficiently” or “fully” been responsive to the question) — the one who asks, or the one who answers?

In a normal conversation, of course, the issue rarely comes about; in an argument where one or the other side, or both, are trying to get answers and defeat the other side, the heat of the moment may determine the answer to the question; and the penultimate paradigm of the question, “Who determines whether the question has been answered?” occurs in the highest form during a deposition or cross-examination in the legal arena.

Observing what occurs during a court proceeding is an interesting experience of human behavior; of the back-and-forth between counsels and the witnesses being deposed or examined, as in:  “You didn’t answer the question.”  “Yes, I did.”  “I asked you…”.  “Asked and answered.”  “Objection, the question has already been asked and answered.”  And on and on until a singular point is pursued to an exhaustive level ad infinitum and ad nauseum.

Is the issue of what constitutes an answered question somewhat akin to the question or “original intent” — i.e., that just like an author’s original intent as to the meaning of a written document is what should rule, similarly, the person who asks the question has the sole power to determine whether or not the question asked has been answered, and moreover, adequately and sufficiently answered?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are beginning the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, these questions concerning the “answering of questions” will and should come to the forefront when confronted with the questions asked on SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability.

Inasmuch as the U.S. Office of Personnel Management has promulgated the questions in a carefully-crafted manner, there are some inherent pitfalls and dangers in what constitutes an adequate response, a sufficient answer and the complete delineation that rises to the level of a satisfactory statement.

SF 3112A is replete with unanswered questions within the very substance of each question, and the answers you provide are best guided by an attorney who has had the experience of legal encounters previously, and who specializes in the Law of Federal Disability Retirement.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Cat’s Cradle

It is the complex game of strings wrapped around the small fingers and thumbs of each hand (or a modification of that contorted vestibule of human appendages), and where each player turns the cradle of the strings into greater complexity with each move by the other.

When children play it, the ease with which each turn of transforming the cradle of strings is a fascinating experience to witness.  When grown-ups do it — or, more accurately described, mess it up royally and invert the design into a an ugly bundle of irreversible entanglements that can no longer be played — the “overthinking” begins, the hesitation blockades and the uncertainty overwhelms.

It is always the grownups who mess up the beauty of the world’s designs, while children play it effortlessly, without conscious thought and with an innocence of proceeding that reveals much about what happens to an individual when you “grow up”.

Of course, we all have to grow up.  It is a sad inevitability.  That is why when the stunted individual who never quite got over his or her high school years, and still to this day talks about that grand finale of his senior year where the glory days of football, parties and friendships that were promised to last forever — that these frozen images yet remain so many years later as the pinnacle of one’s life and achievements — we shake our heads sadly and wonder at the fragile nature of man’s folly.

Cat’s cradle is the metaphor for much of life itself — of how simple childhood is, and yet so complex like the strings that bind the hands that create.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal job, the time to “think” about the next move — like the overthinking grownup who is asked to take the next step in the game of Cat’s Cradle — may seem complex because of its very simplicity.

There is the future to think about, and all that comes with it.  One’s career, health and future security are all entangled within the strings that wrap around and throughout one’s life, but the question that remains is similar to the conundrum of a Cat’s Cradle — is it you who will make sure that the next design of strings will turn out “right”, or will you leave it up to the Federal Agency or the Postal Service to determine your future course of actions?

Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is a complex administrative process —much like the tangle of strings in a Cat’s Cradle —but it is the simplicity of deciding that will make all the difference as to whether the next move will be a successful one.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Closet of skeletons

It is a metaphor that is familiar; of secrets, or near-secrets; of those cluttered past incidents and events that need to be kept in the hallway closet, perhaps even locked for safety and security, whether of embarrassment, regret or shame.

Yet, modernity has less of them.  With the disappearance of shame, of openness of societal mores and normative values disappearing, almost vanishing, there is then no need for the closet to exist, and skeletons are fewer and far between because we have redefined what is shameful, what should be regretted, and that which is deemed unworthy of public display.

“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”  That quip is attributed to Mark Twain, of course; the grand humorist of American society, and the author of books that have touched the conscience of an unsettled people.  How does a species stop blushing?  By rearranging that which triggers such a characteristic – the words that touch, the concept that shames, the sentence that embarrasses and the paragraph that pushes.

There are, of course, positive consequences, as well; for, the openness of society and the suppression and obliteration of normative standards have allowed for silent crimes that were once unspoken to be openly displayed and cauterized.  Perhaps, sometimes, “talking about it” opens things up, allows for the public airing of that which was hidden because polite society did not want to deal with it; but since it existed, anyway, we might as well open the closet of skeletons as a society and let everyone see whatever it is that we were ashamed of.

Sometimes, or more often than not, those monsters within are greater than the reality of the objective world.

Medical conditions often relate to such a concept.  We tend to hide them, be ashamed of them, and make of them larger than what necessity dictates – except for old men and women standing in the line at the post office who openly discuss the details of their last operation and procedures, of course.

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, remember that filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often like the closet of skeletons; once they are out in the open, the agency and the Postal Service will have to deal with it, just like the Federal or Postal worker who had to “deal with it” – the medical condition – for all of these many years, fearful of the shame of revelation and the reaction of the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Different hats, many roles

We all wear them, don’t we?  Husband, parent, worker, co-worker, supervisor, babysitter, grandparent; or, to remain neutral and non-sexist, wife, mother, worker, co-worker, supervisor, babysitter, grandparent, etc.  There, we have dispensed with any allegation that we have not been fully “balanced” in our perspective, allowing for an all-inclusive approach so that no one feels left out.

Yet, if you closely scrutinize the “list” that was previously posited, you will find the slight nuance of a difference between the two – instead of the neutral “parent”, the word “mother” was unscrupulously inserted, and those who are hypersensitive may want to shout, scream and otherwise pour out a stream of invectives in alleging that such a differentiation in the distinction between “parent” and “mother” reveals an underlying motive, unseen and concealed baseness that betrays a discriminatory or biased intent in the writer of such a list.

Such subtle distinctions are supposed to “uncover” and reveal that which was previously skillfully (or not so skillfully) disguised and only subconsciously manifested in an accidental revelation not previously presumed.  But is this fair?  Does the mere wording based upon previously-accepted normative paradigms necessarily compel a conclusion of subjective intent?  Or, should it instead merely trigger an intermediate step of clarification?

Clarity, of course, is the foundation of communication, and wearing different hats in many roles can often confuse the acuity of defined roles.  For instance, does the Federal or Postal employee who is “disabled”, does he or she have certain “rights” that can be protected?  Does a request for an accommodation have to be submitted before a Federal Disability Retirement application can be filed, or is submission of a requested completion of SF 3112D sufficient to satisfy that legal criteria?  Does the “different hat” that the Federal Disability Retirement applicant play – of a “disabled applicant for OPM purposes – mean that there is now a “different role” that the Agency must play, or that OPM must recognize during the process?

We like to think that while the world around us changes, we remain steadfastly “constant” in who we are and what we stand for; but the reality is that, when a medical condition strikes at the heart of a person’s occupation, preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, requires at the outset when we have to wear different hats, the accompanying different roles will require a reassessment as to the viability of what our next steps will be, especially when preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Comfort Zones

For animals, they are often designated as “arc of flight” — that invisible periphery where violation results in immediate retreat or thoughtless stampede.  For humans, it is identified as one’s “space”, or “privacy bubble”, and while self-control and societal norms have curtailed and somewhat dulled the thousands of years of evolutionary refinements to reactive instincts, the palpable discomfort manifested, the shifting unease of taboos violated, and for some, an onset of panic and heightened anxiety are the resulting characteristics of Darwinian antecedents.

Comfort zones apply to the generic aegis of such unseen safety nets.  For most of us, it is comprised of predictability and the security which comes from repetitive monotony.  That is why, even to one’s detriment, one will cling to the known quantity, even if the attraction of the unknown outweighs with obvious benefits and accruals.  Like the frog which sits calmly in a pot of water ever increasingly rising in temperature, the person who walks about within the confines of one’s comfort zone is in danger always of violative harm.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the question of the flashpoint — the intersection of continuing in one’s capacity and the harm it inflicts by doing so — is a complex admixture of needs, wants, comfort zones and the desire to persist.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers are a hard-working bunch who, in their collective stubbornness, refuse to give up.  Whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset matters not; it is not the system, the benefits nor the years of service; rather, it is often the career itself and the involvement with the “mission of the agency”.  It is a sense of belonging, of being part of a group of individuals, an agency, a department, and always with a sense of purpose and sometimes with a clarity of future endeavors.

Having gone to work for these many years, the value of daily routine cannot be underestimated, and therein lies the essence of one’s comfort zone:  life and the foreseeable future.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is a violation of one’s comfort zone.  It is tantamount to entering the arc of flight for a flock of sheep, or the privacy bubble at a social gathering.  But when a medical condition mandates the necessity of a step for self-preservation, any consideration for one’s comfort zone should be set aside, as the road to attaining the purposive end of an OPM Disability Retirement annuity may test the very fabric of invisible characteristics yet to be revealed.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Retiring from Federal Service with OPM Disability Retirement: Happy Puppy

Overused words lose their intended efficacy.  Perhaps the point of decay came about when the (unnamed) fast-food company decided to combine the word with the term, “meal”, and thereafter kids, grandkids and celebrity popularization effectively killed the last semblance of meaning.  But when watching the exuberance exhibited by a puppy, where commonplace activities are engaged in with reactive and unbounded energy, it is appropriate and meaningful to compound the two, and ascribe the descriptively emotive, “happy puppy“.

Whether it is the latter term which enlivens the former, or vice versa, is a question of inference; for, with the loss of meaning generally of the former, but with a retained appreciation that the latter is always inextricably bundled with ecstatic joy and delicious laughter; sometimes, by mere inference and inseparable conceptual coalescence of words, the singular vacuity of a word can be reinvigorated.  It also is often ascribed in anthropomorphic terms, as well as its opposite:  men and women are described as “happy puppies” or “sad puppies”, and the accompanying imagery is one of circumstantial delightfulness or despondency.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, if the elusive concept of “happiness” has been replaced with the daily toil of anguish and turmoil of angst, it is perhaps time to consider filing for Federal OPM Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

When once the Federal or Postal employee was described as “one happy puppy”, but now avoidance and treatment as the winds of a plague have brushed upon the workplace each time the Federal or Postal employee enters the premises, and whispers of the arrival of that “sad puppy” abound like a pervasive brushfire of vituperative verbal assault; then, it is time to prepare, formulate and file for Disability Retirement benefits through OPM.

For, when the reality of a circumstance overshadows the conceptual force of words, then it becomes an opportunity for the sad puppy to seek the higher grounds of greater joy, and to wag its proverbial tail into the sunset of a happy life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire