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

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Quiet Subtlety of Excellence

Failure blares like a discordant trumpet in a confined space with no exit; success flows like the quiet stream on the other side of the mountain, barely noticed.  In law, it is the appeal, and the written order issued therefrom, which receives the attention of the daily press.  Yet, if one pauses to consider:  The reason for the appeal, is the lack of success at the trial court level.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suddenly find themselves the target of workplace hostility because of a medical condition which now prevents them from performing one or more of the essential elements of their job, it is often a surprise that they have become a focal point of interest.  The quietude enjoyed for so many years, in relative anonymity, is actually a reflection of one’s outstanding performance throughout the years.  It is because of the threat of departure — of the “failure” to continue to support the agency, or to provide ongoing efficient contribution to the U.S. Postal Service — that results in the sudden and unwanted attention.

Filing for OPM Disability Retirement benefits for the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who cannot perform all of the essential elements of one’s job anymore, is an option which must be considered precisely because of the limited alternatives offered or provided by the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service.  Health should always be the primary concern; maintenance of one’s health, the focal point of endeavor.

And just as importantly, to maintain that quiet subtlety of excellence in the next important step of one’s life — to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

All these many years, the Federal or Postal worker has dedicated him or herself to the excellence of combining career, family and personal relationships; when the time comes to attend to one’s own medical difficulties, it is important to maintain and continue that standard-setting record of accomplishments, by ensuring that one’s Federal OPM Disability Retirement claim reflects what has always been known all along, but has only received the murmurings of a muffled fanfare — that quiet subtlety of excellence.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Expanding the Significance of Individual Federal Employee Disability Cases

Lawyers daily engage in it; courts are sometimes receptive to it; the public is rarely approving of it.  Expanding the literal language of a statute by reading meaning into words, phrases and conceptual paradigms not otherwise manifested or obvious in the words enacted, is a language game which some call intellectual brilliance, while others deem to be disingenuous or otherwise dishonest, to be blunt about it.  The “it”, of course, is the compendium of the expanded impact and relevance of consequences resulting from statutory language, some intended, others unintended.

Does it all result from the poor crafting of a statute?  Sometimes.  Is it expected in all statutory construction?  Mostly.  Can constriction, as the antithesis and corollary of an expanded interpretation, ever come about?  Rarely.  It is in the very nature and intuitive construct of a legal statute and inherent principle that expansion of that principle to include avenues and influences not otherwise originally intended is to be expected.  That is the very nature of a law.

Sometimes, legislators knowingly write a statute with intended wiggle-room precisely for the lawyers and judges to wrangle over.  What the general public fails to understand, however, is that each individual can be a singular guardian of the principle of expansion, in each case, with purposive intent and influences beyond, like tentacles on an octopus of fate and fleeting fairytales of justice.

Like the guardian standing at an entranceway, who hears a strange noise or movement emanating from beyond the periphery of his granted authority; how far should he venture?  To what extent should he be curious?  What parameters should preclude his investigation?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are filing for Federal Disability Retirement through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the subtle reverberations and almost imperceptible ripples from each case can never be underestimated.  The character of a case can only be properly compared by taking quantum leaps to cases from years ago; but clearly the benefits derived from prior cases, and precedents set from prior expansions of legal principles, cannot be denied.

The general thought is that individual cases represent merely a single raindrop in the expansive oceans of legal turbulence; but it is the individual case which can influence the compendium of legal principles through the unique argumentation of a previously unthought issue, brought in a light untold; viewed at an angle unstated.

Federal Disability Retirement is a parcel of law in a patchwork of quilts still being sewn; and each Federal or Postal employee who seeks to enter into the universe of laws, legal criteria and evidentiary significance, unintentionally walks into a cauldron of Federal Disability Retirement authorities which engulf and encapsulate statutes, regulations, case-laws and underlying legal principles.

How one uses them; to what extent one responds to the Standard Forms, which includes SF 3107 (for FERS) and SF 2801 (for CSRS and CSRS-Offset); and SF 3112 (for all three, FERS, CSRS and CSRS Offset); which evidentiary compendium is utilized; and the extent of legal argumentation and tools assuaged; all make a difference in expanding the significance of an individual case upon the greater universe of the feudal castle originally surrounded by a moat for protection, but where the guardian lowers the drawbridge and enters into territories hitherto uninhabited.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Postal and Federal Medical Retirement: The Concealment of Emoticons

They replace the true face of humanity.  Pasted with a quick tap of a computer keyboard, they allegedly represent the state of emotional being of a person, at a given time, within a granted context, in the course of an interplay accomplished in diatribes of virtual reality.  Contrast such antiseptic encounters with the profound agony felt in Anton Chekhov’s short story, “Grief” (or sometimes otherwise entitled, “Misery”), and one begins to comprehend the depths of distancing depravity that people have fallen to in an attempt to bifurcate humanity from personal contact.

Whether the emoticon truly represents the state of one’s psyche at the time of pasting the cartoonish face upon a screen, or it merely conceals an underlying turmoil otherwise safely hidden, is besides the point; the encounter of exponential removal is determined, and unlike the sadness felt by Iona Potapov in attempting to relate the story of his son’s death, it can be quickly posted, expediently dismissed, and immediately turned aside to engage a different topic altogether.  But human history finds few factors new to the universe; the young always believe that human innovation and articulations of deceitful demarcations of denouements in the linear chains and linkages of human endeavors are only recently discovered, when in fact artifices built to conceal the true nature of a person’s state of being have always been constructed, for reasons left to guessing and implication.  Individuals who suffer from medical conditions become adept at such masking.  In Japan, the Noh players wear masks which reveal various emotions; yet, depending upon the angle of view, the lighting upon the mask, and the perspective of the audience, the emotion itself can be altered from scene to scene.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must daily conceal the authenticity of their state of turmoil, whether because of the lack of empathy by their agency, or because societal norms dictate the extinguishment of any open display of human states within the context of a workplace, know well the trauma of conflicting contradictions between the public face and the private reality.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS-Offset, is a viable option to consider when the cumulative impact of hiding one’s pain, concealing the daily turmoil, or overstepping one’s welcome has passed the pinnacle of surface meanings.  There comes a point when work loses its meaning at the intersection of a medical condition impacting the value of health, family and future.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers have a choice in the matter; the option is to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management; and like pasting an emoticon as a farewell wave as one is departing the Federal or Postal sector, so the telling of one’s grieving story as Iona does to his horse, is the true framing of human value, where one’s worth is determined not by virtual reality, but the evocation of a touch of warmth in holding one’s hand.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire