Federal Disability Retirement: The Ledger of Life

The Ledger was once that oversized binder which recorded the economic transactions for various purposes — of maintaining income and outlays; of keeping an accounting of various details in one’s life, whether of activities in business or even of one’s habits and patterns of existence.  Somehow, it doesn’t seem the same as typing such information into a computer, or of buying a software that categorizes and makes everything neat and simple.

That old Ledger that had to be lugged from one place to another reflected the weight of seriousness just in the act of lifting it; and when you opened the front cover and turned the pages where the latest entry still emitted the scent of ink still drying, one sensed the permanency of recordation as a trait of relevance that could never be erased.

And what of the metaphor — of one’s “Ledger of Life” — a recordation of the transactions that one has engaged; of the weightiness of that placed on one side of the ledger as compared to the negative notations appearing on the opposite side; of the image of St. Peter as the gatekeeper reviewing the annotated columns to determine if you “made it” — all because “The Ledger” reflects the value of your actions during the course of a lifetime?

Do we even think in those terms, anymore?  Or, while the dusty old books that used to be kept beneath the wooden grains of counters in dark and dank workshops were left behind when first the technology of modernity made for obsolescence of such anachronistic record keeping, did we then just revert to making mental notes for the things we did or did not do?

Most of us, if asked if we are “eligible” to pass through St. Peter’s exclusive club, would respond thus: “Oh, all in all, I have been a pretty good person and so, Yes, I believe I would qualify.”  And so we approach most things in a similar vein: We give ourselves a “pass” and believe that the Ledger of Life would favor our eligibility status.

And so it is with Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer form a medical condition and need to file for FERS Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management: Because you suffer from the medical condition and believe that the medical condition cannot but be proof of eligibility, so you believe OPM cannot but see what you see.  But filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is a paper-presentation to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and must be proven by a preponderance of the evidence.

It is very rare that any Federal Disability Retirement application is a “slam-dunk” case, or even an “easy” one; and like the Ledger of Life that we have left behind in the dusty heaps of bookshelves long forgotten, preparing an effective FERS Disability Retirement application is not just a simple transaction to be annotated into columns of neat book keeping, but a bureaucratic process that must be proven and argued for — somewhat like the Ledger of Life that must be submitted to St. Peter at the Pearly Gates of Heaven.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Law: Sound legal arguments

Arguments in general share a characteristic within the more limited field of those involving legal issues: soundness is based upon factors involving coherence, cogency, consistency and the application of the rules of propositional logic.  The latter — of propositional logic — can get lost in general arguments when they become wrapped in multiple compound statements, shouted with ardor and passion, and conveyed with a sense of unequivocal belief as to one’s “rightness” and doubtless self-righteousness.

Propositional logic within the field of legal argumentation, however, takes on a more limited and restrictive nature, for it normally is contained by the text of legal opinions and cases that have a value of precedence.  The “soundness” or its antonym — of an “unsound legal argument” — largely depends upon how much the legal practitioner will “stretch” the foundational apparatus involved: the analogical arguments used in citing legal precedents.

Future legal opinions — those evolving from the very attempts by lawyers to stretch those precedents into areas heretofore disallowed — are based upon the persuasive propositional logic argued at the appellate level, and even in the various stages of an OPM Disability Retirement case.  On an informal level, of course, one will want to cite legal precedents to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management at the first two stages of the process — at the Initial Stage of the OPM Disability Retirement process, as well as the Second, “Reconsideration” Stage.

At both levels, sound legal argumentation should be employed — by “sound”, meaning that the basic and well-known legal precedents should be cited involving what constitutes meeting the burden of proof in a Federal Disability Retirement application; what meets the legal requirements of an “accommodation”; the importance of medical evidence and the criteria that must be applied in assessing and evaluating the content and substance of the medical evidence presented; as well as the foundational basis of “sound” legal cases which delineate, in a persuasive manner, the compendium of evidentiary documentation which comprises one’s Federal Disability Retirement application.

At the “Third Level” of the process, of course — an appeal to the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (or more familiarly known as the “MSPB”) — one must take extra care in presenting sound legal arguments, because there, an Administrative Law Judge will be attuned to the “stretching” and “extension-attempting” arguments that citation of legal precedents may pose, and the “soundness” of one’s knowledge of “the law” is often a prerequisite in even trying to make one’s case before such an Administrative Law Judge.

For, in the end, sound legal arguments are not too dissimilar from arguments sound or unsound in general; they just require an extra component of legal training allowed that involves the proper and effective use and application of arguments by analogy based upon case-law precedents.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer Representation OPM Disability Retirement: The winter doldrums

Whether everyone without exception experiences it, one can never tell.  For some, it comes in a subtle, slow manner, approaching at the beginning of, somewhere in the middle, or near the end when the long days of cold and darkness seem to have pervaded for too long that it has extinguished any memories of summer days and the sound of lapping waves in the heat of August.

For others, it comes like the roaring rush of the Siberian winds, paralyzing one as the shivers and overwhelming sense of doom and gloom – those twin cousins of an anticipated darkness and a subjective response to such environmental causation – becomes unavoidable in their power and sensation.  Of course, those who live in Florida never experience it, or rarely so.

The winter doldrums come upon most, in varying states of power, with impact in spectrums that only the affected individual can concede to.  It is, of course, too early to complain about so nascent in the season.  Instead, we are to be “joyful”, as the holiday season is upon us; and yet…

The analogy and metaphor have been applied in literature great and mediocre; of seasons likened to life’s cycles, and of their parallels to the experiences engaged.  From the “winter of discontent” to the “summer of childhood memories”, the cycle of seasons play upon the imagination, as spring represents the innocent beginnings of youthful dreams and fall betrays the end of childhood.

But of winter?  Where does the metaphor begin, and more importantly, what is anticipated beyond the frozen pillars of shivering nights?  And of winter doldrums – do we all experience them, and to what metaphor will we attribute the sensation of blanketed despondency, never to be shed except in the light of hope for a future yet to be anticipated?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition has brought about the winter doldrums too early in one’s career, preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may well be the only way to shed the blanket of winter doldrums.  For, if spring is the season of hope and summer the embracing of tomorrow, then fall must by necessity be the phase of the downtrodden, and the winter doldrums the time to begin preparing.

Such analogies, of course, are meant to be just that – images by which to begin a process that remains a stark reality – for, the bureaucracy of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is likened to a dark dungeon that must be faced, and the perilous journey of filing a Federal Disability Retirement is sometimes the only way out of the despair of the Winter doldrums, by preparing, formulating and filing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Benefits: The way we live

Did we ever have a voice in it?  Was there a consensus of voices, a roll call of votes cast, or a participatory democracy in action that allowed for a resolution that resulted in it?  Or, as in authoritarian countries (and some would include ours in that category), was there a “Master Planner” who decided that this way we live was the best for all, with likely a minority of few living somewhat separately, and of course we can all be given some breadcrumbs of hope, as in, “If you work hard enough, you too can achieve this…”

We are told that modern technology has lessened the stresses of living; and, to some extent, there is a compelling argument to be made.

Medicine is no longer a barbaric torture chamber (unless you are subjected to its treatments – although, nothing in comparison to surgery without anesthesia or bloodletting by leeches or lacerations in order keep the humors in balance); workplace safety rules, forced labor circumscribed by laws that restrict hours and extent; mandated breaks and general recognition that employer-employee relationships should be honored with a synergistic approach (yes, this is more of a meaningless euphemism than not) – one can argue that modernity of living is far more preferable than the life Hobbes described of being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Must we conclude, then, that all the grumblings about life’s stresses and shortcomings are merely a result of our state of being spoiled?  That there is no true complaint to be made because of our ignorance of history and from whence we came, in comparison to where we are today?

There is, of course, another side to this argument:  In modernity, there no longer exists any “community”, anymore.  The fast pace we live by; the transient nature of the economy forcing mass migration to wherever the jobs appear; the paradigm we ascribe to of being “independent” at a young age; the cult of youth that places an emphasis upon a generation separated from parents, grandparents and family relationships; the freedom and liberty enjoyed for pleasure, without value, normative values or a shared sense of what we believe in, who we are, and where we are going.  Yes, perhaps there was a master planner, but whether of good or evil intent, one must question.

For the Federal or Postal employee, the question of the way we live comes down to a medical concern that leads one to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  The way we live and the work that is being done comes to an incommensurate clash for the Federal or Postal employee, and that is when a Federal Employee Disability Retirement application must be properly prepared.  The philosophical musing of the way we live are somewhat of an aside; it is, in the end, the pragmatic steps in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal OPM Disability Retirement application that can make all of the difference.

Pondering upon the roots and causes of the problems regarding the way we live can be set aside for the time being, until an OPM Disability Retirement has been approved.  Once it is approved, we are then presented with some choices; and that, in the end, is worth everything in being able to have the freedom in choosing the way we live.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Disability Retirement: Fairytales, mythologies and lies

They all constitute the arena of “make-believe”.  Yet, we excuse the first, ignore the second, and feel guilt and shame for embracing the third – or, at least some of us, do.  Of fairytales, we share in the delight of passing on such tall tales of wonderlands and Eskimo nights full of shooting stars and talking Polar Bears; of mythologies, we recognize the need for lost civilizations to have embraced a means of explaining, but consider such trifles to be beyond the sophistication of modernity, and arrogantly dismiss such dusty irrelevancies as mere fodder for a fairytale told:  Once upon a time, Man lived in ignorance and could not comprehend the complexities of science, Darwinism and the unseen world of genetic engineering by happenstance of gravitational alliances in planetary designs of explainable phenomena; but we know better, now.  But of lies, the second is more akin; the first is excusable as an exception to the rule, especially when the innocence of childhood smiles warms the hearts of parental yearnings.

Rage, effrontery, a sense of betrayal, and a violation of integrity’s core; these become bundled up and spat out into the cauldron of people’s tolerance for acceptable behavior, and from an early age, we instill in children the parallel universes encompassing Fairytales, Mythologies and Lies without an inkling of self-contradiction.  And, again, of the middle one, we tolerate as mere poppycock by arrogance of modernity, in order to explain how our forefathers could tolerate that which we reflect in the first but not the third.  And of the third, we contend that we can abandon and banish the foundation of a Commandment, while preserving the moral explication justifying the mandate of Truthfulness, and so we embrace the linguistic gymnasts provided by forgotten giants of Philosophy’s past, like Kant’s maxims of universalization of principles otherwise untethered by metaphysical concerns, or even of John Stuart Mill’s failed Utilitarianism.

Then, we allow for exceptions – such as those hypotheticals where the black boots of horror’s past that knock on doors in the middle of the night and inquire as to hidden racial divides in the attic of one’s abode, but where lies and denials are justified in the greater cause of a choice between words and existence in the face of reality, Being and human cruelty.  For the person who must live daily within the consequences of what elitists and ivory-towered cocoons revive, the truth is that there never was a problem for most of us, between fairytales, mythologies and lies.  The first was for children to enjoy and learn from the lessons of innocence; the second, for adults to study in order to understand the origins of our being; and of the third, we recognize as the soul’s defect in Man.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must contend with a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal position, the identification between the tripartite elements become quickly clear:  Fairytales are the promises made by the Federal agency and the U.S. Postal Service; Mythologies are the rules broken by the Federal agency and the U.S. Postal Service, but which are pointed to so as to create an impression of integrity; and lies are those statements made and exposed, but denied daily by the Federal agency and the U.S. Postal Service.  In the end, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is one way of extricating one’s self from such fairytales, mythologies, and lies daily told.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management: Continuity of Care

Most things in life require a continuity of care.  Yes, projects will often have an inception date, and termination point where, once completed, no further maintenance of effort is required.  But other concerns require further and elaborative engagements beyond the linear horizon of attendance, including:  teeth, dogs, children, marriages, and Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

When a Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker obtains that vaunted and desirable letter of Approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the tendency is to think that one may then fade into the proverbial sunset, ever to receive a Federal Disability Retirement annuity and focus upon one’s health, medical conditions and the medical care required.

But then there comes additional contacts from OPM — perhaps not for a few years; perhaps not for a decade.  But the potentiality of the contact is there, and one must lay down the framework of preparatory care in order to respond appropriately.  If not, what will happen is this:  A fairly innocuous request for employment information can result in a termination of the disability annuity, based upon a “finding” that you have been deemed medically recovered.

That “Final Notice” from the Office of Personnel Management does, fortunately, allow for Reconsideration rights, as well as further rights of appeal to the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board.  Additionally, there is a proper methodology for responding to OPM, to enhance and greatly ensure the continuation of one’s Federal OPM Disability Retirement benefits.

Wrong steps can lead to negative results; unresponsive panic without proper legal argumentation can have the unwanted consequences of an unnecessary loss of one’s Federal Disability Retirement annuity.  The best approach is always to respond with the legal armaments and arsenal one is provided with, and to maintain a continuity of care for preserving one’s Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Affirmative Steps

Procrastination is the bane of progress; by delaying and kicking the proverbial can down the road, the chances of decreasing one’s odds of accomplishment become magnified exponentially.  What is the reasoning behind inaction and inertia?

Human life must by necessity involve movement and progress; for, unlike other species who find the immediacy of satisfaction and gratification to be the basis of existential justification, we bring to the fore the coalescence of one’s memory of where we came from; a future hope of where we want to go; and in combing the two, a greater purpose of teleological rationality within the context of the here and now.  But that which provides the foundation of uniqueness, can conversely be the lynchpin of destruction.

Self-justifying language games of self-immolation; we can construct strings of logically valid reasonings based upon convoluted cacophonies of orchestrated mutterings.  But that which appears reasonable is not always valid; and as validity constitutes the systemic structure of logic, so that which may reveal itself as sound uttering may merely be a whining whisper of a mad man’s meanderings.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who can no longer perform all of the essential elements of one’s position, the reasons for not filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits are wide, varied, and often complex.  “This job has been my life for so long” (understandable, but change is often an inevitable feature of life); “Maybe my agency can accommodate me” (unlikely); “I am hoping to get better” (yes, but in the meantime, what is your agency planning to do?).

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is a big and dramatic step.  But for the Federal and Postal worker who cannot perform at least one, if not more than one, of the essential elements of one’s positionally-determined duties, it is time to consider taking some affirmative steps in a direction which one often knows to be true, but where procrastination is the path of least resistance.

And, yes, to err is human, but at what cost, and where does human history reveal that delay results in a successful outcome?

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire