FERS Disability Retirement: Knowledge & Application

It is assumed in the West that knowledge, in and of itself, is a valuable thing.  And in this country, periods of pragmatism overtake that viewpoint, but always seem to revert back — otherwise, how else would we persuade children to spend countless hours sitting in a classroom, year after year?

As “making a living” has become the primary focus of society in general, there is an ever-pervasive tension between knowledge for its own sake as opposed to knowledge that is “useful” (translation: the “know-how” to make a living).  This is a tension that every society must grapple with — of becoming educated as an end in itself or as a means to a different end.

Few believe that there is a downside to having a good education, but a well-educated populace that lives in poverty cannot for long sustain its justification for perpetuating inapplicable knowledge.  Society must always maintain a balance between theoretical knowledge and applied knowledge.

Law is a discipline which straddles the fence between the theoretical and the practical, inasmuch as it engages in conceptual/intellectual issues, but concurrently, must be able to be applied in the everyday lives of people.  For example, in domestic relations law, there are overarching conceptual principles focusing upon what constitutes “the best interests of a child” in a custody battle, but in the end, the practical application of determining a workable visitation schedule must be hammered out between the parties involved.

Similarly, in Criminal law, while a society may adopt a conceptual apparatus as to whether “reform” is the goal or “punishment” is the justifying foundation for a lengthy incarceration imposed, nevertheless, in either case, society must consider the practical issue of protecting its citizens from further harm which may predictably be committed by the party found guilty.

In a similar fashion, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal employees who file for Federal or Postal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under the FERS system, knowing the Law and cases governing Federal Disability Retirement is essential in engaging the bureaucratic process, precisely because Federal Disability Retirement benefits is not merely about the medical condition in and of itself, but involves a complex consortium of issues in relation to the job one is positioned in, whether the Agency can accommodate an individual’s medical disabilities as well as what constitutes a legally-viable accommodation, as well as a whole host of other similar issues.

Here, knowledge precedes application, and having a ‘working’ knowledge of the laws governing Federal Disability Retirement in order to apply it at each stage of the administrative process is a necessary prerequisite before considering even applying for the benefit.  Yes, there are rare cases in which the medical disability is so severe and clear-cur that the medical documentation is and should be sufficient unto itself; but that is a rare case indeed.

As such, at whatever stage of the process one finds oneself in the Federal Disability Retirement bureaucracy, you may want to consult with an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes exclusively in Federal Disability Retirement law in order to have not only the knowledge but the practical application of proceeding against the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in fighting for your FERS Disability Retirement benefits.

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.

 

U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board & Disability Retirement: The Quiet Case

There are a significant amount — of the one’s without a fanfare, no formal MSPB opinion, but nevertheless, a “win”.

Many Federal and Postal employees get to that Stage — Stage 3 — an appeal to the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board.  At this Stage, all reasonable attempts to persuade the medical specialists at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management have failed.

At the First Stage of the process, you filed your best shot and provided the utmost of medical documentation, but they denied you, anyway.  Perhaps it was because your previous year’s performance ratings were excellent, and you may have even received a cash award.  Or, maybe the medical opinions of your doctors were not sufficient.  Maybe OPM wasn’t persuaded that your condition would last at least 12 months.

Whatever the reasons, you had to go through the Second Stage of the process — the Reconsideration Stage.  You gathered whatever else you could, and submitted it within the timeframe allotted.  You hoped for the best.  When the denial came — the Second Denial — you knew you were in trouble.  The MSPB?  How are you going to maneuver through that complex maze before an Administrative Judge?

And this is essentially the “last stop” — for, if you don’t win it here, you will likely not prevail at a Petition for Review, and going to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals is prohibitively expensive, and likely not winnable.  Yet, the MSPB opens up a great opportunity — for, what most people don’t realize, is that it is an opportunity for “the Quiet Win”.

Before you ever go to a Hearing on the case; before you have to prepare your Pre-Hearing Submissions — it is an opportunity to listen carefully to the OPM Representative assigned to your case.  If you listen carefully, you will have the opportunity to quietly and behind the scenes, submit additional evidence which could result in that 2.5 Stage of the process — between the Denial of the Reconsideration Stage and the Hearing before an Administrative Judge at the MSPB.

Of course, it will help if you also have an experienced FERS Disability Retirement Attorney involved, who can help you through the “Quiet Case.”

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 Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Life’s Shrapnel

It is a fearful weapon of war — meant to maim, at the very least, and if it kills by damaging enough of a human body, such as the carotid artery or other major vessel, then so much the better.  Whether from a bomb or other explosive device, it represents a terrible indictment of war’s tragedy: It does not discriminate; it treats women and children in the same way as official combatants; it cares not as to the consequences, and its success is measured both by the least of injuries as well as by the gravest of results.

Life’s shrapnel is a metaphor of war’s shrapnel.  For, like the blast which hurls a shrapnel manufactured for war’s purposes, life’s shrapnel is a sudden, surprising and indiscriminate piece of “something” which suddenly maims, injures, puts on hold one’s future or somehow pauses it; and a medical condition can be seen as just that — one of life’s shrapnel.

For a medical condition suddenly changes the entire perspective of a person’s life — of how one can do or not do certain activities, anymore; of whether one can continue in a career, anymore.

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, contact a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider whether or not one of life’s shrapnels — the medical condition which suddenly has altered the course of your decisions — might not require the effective preparation and filing of a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: The realization

In most cases, it is not as dramatic a moment as we all tend to think; it is rarely “The X”, as in the penultimate juncture of enlightenment where the “The” is prefatory to the noun, as opposed to a more general article such as, “A realization” — meaning, one among others, or just another one amidst many.

Most such moments are not “Aha” ones, where there is a sudden and profound revelation, like the proverbial Road to Damascus experience or the Gestalt shift in thinking.  Instead, the realization of X is more often than not subtle, incremental and a slow progression towards an acknowledgment, observable and quantifiable over a period of many months or years.  Whether we make it into a momentous period, a critical juncture in our lives, or as one of many tokens of change often depends upon how we view each segment that results in a modification of a life judged in its totality.

Aristotle’s belief is that a person’s life cannot be fully evaluated until much later in life.  Indeed, what do we make about a person’s career, reputation and overall “life” when a critical mistake is made at the beginning — say, in the early years of youth when one is more susceptible to the vicissitudes of emotional upheavals and pursuance of desires without thought?  Or, of the fool who, in old age, does something similarly rash?  Do we make an evaluation at the eulogy and excuse the one bad bit?

Something like, “Now, we all knew X.  He was a great man.  He had, of course, that one incident, but …”.  Is it better to have the negative incident occur early in life so that you can rectify and redeem for the remainder?  Or, is it more acceptable and palatable to live an exemplary life, then commit an error in later life so that you can excuse it as the “folly of age”?

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 the Federal or Postal employee’s job and duties, “the realization” that something has to change will mostly come about over a period of time — incrementally, perhaps even subtly, and then one day there is a determination that has to be made that priorities of life need to be reordered and modifications to a life of struggle necessitates modifications.

Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is the necessary next step after such a realization.  Preparing, formulating and filing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application is the natural course of events once the Federal or Postal employee recognizes that change must occur.

Consulting with an experienced attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law is also a good next step — for that points to the realization that not all things in the universe are known, and some things may need some further guidance in pursuit of a gargantuan effort required to go up against a behemoth of a bureaucracy — OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Representation: Trains of life

There are trains that come and go daily; others, with lengthy destinations, like the Trans-Siberian Express traveling from Moscow to Vladivostok or the Venice-Simplon Orient Express visiting Paris, Venice, Istanbul, and places in-between; and others merely for the monotony of going to work and coming home.

Those who engage the latter often find that vacations utilizing trains are boring and uninviting; yet, for others who struggle through the vehicular traffic jams by rush-hour standards prefer it because you neither have to man the controls nor keep your focus upon the roads to avoid those who are inattentive to the rules of the road.

Relaxation takes many forms, multiple definitions and countless contextual feeds; we are all different, as are the trains of life.  Where it is going; the ticket we purchase; whether we have boarded the “right” train; whether the mistake was made at the ticket office or our lack of identifying the proper one to take; and, if the wrong one, can we still enjoy the scenic view or do we become consumed by the direction we are being taken?

What if we boarded the wrong train, but it turns out that the direction it is taking us fulfills every hope and dream we ever desired – do we still get off at the next stop, or do we muster courage enough to remain still and enjoy the view?  What if we stepped onto the “right” train, but knowing that we don’t really want to go that way, realizing that it has always been a mistake and nevertheless do so with reluctance and dread – do we force ourselves to continue on the journey despite our unhappiness and angst of drudgery?

Or, take it a step further – what if we buy a ticket, board a train and realize that it is not the right one expected, but upon being asked by the ticket-taker mid-trip, the official – whether intentionally or by lack of observance – makes no comment, punches the proper hole and moves on; do we sit with gleeful quietude and just let the train take us where we did not intend but are happy to experience?

That is often how life works – of trains that we intend to board, sometimes mistakenly take, and otherwise inadvertently travel upon; and that is how a Federal or Postal employee suffering from a medical condition should view filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Sometimes, the ticket fails to match the trip; other times, while the intended destination corresponds perfectly, there is a “mishap” on the trip itself.

Perhaps the Federal or Postal employee never expected a medical condition; so be it, but plans for the ongoing train of life must nevertheless be made.  Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is the next step where a Federal career must end because the Federal or Postal employee can no longer perform all of the essential element of one’s Federal or Postal position.

For, as the trains of life may be many, choosing the right “ticket” while waiting to board is just as important as identifying the train that will take you to the intended destination.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Plan of Attack

Every battle requires a “plan of attack”, and preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is no less an “adversarial” process than a lawsuit filed with the local county court.

One may embellish and deny by describing the process as “nothing more” than an “administrative” procedure, where the deciding agency is merely reviewing the components for “eligibility requirements” and conformance to entitlement regulations, but one needs only to be denied a OPM Disability Retirement application to realize that it is a legal process just like any other.

That is why, when a Federal or Postal employee’s Federal Disability Retirement application is denied at the First Level of the process, the usual response is tantamount to that of an opponent who lacked a plan of attack and quickly disburses in a retreat of panic.

Denials should be expected, and not necessarily because of a lack on the part of the Federal or Postal applicant, but because the “enemy” will counterattack and “win” some “battles”.  The army which never considers a setback is one which advances with such arrogance that the hubris of pride defeats without the enemy ever needing to lift a finger.

For those Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who filed for OPM Disability Retirement benefits, and who thought that his or her Federal Disability Retirement application was an unconquerable force of inevitability, the good news is that there is another day yet to come for a new battle, and even another beyond that, where a singular defeat means merely a chance to regroup for another day’s skirmish in order to win the ultimate prize:  the war itself.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Employees Disability Retirement Benefits: Weather and the Prognosis

Prognostication of weather, beyond a day (or sometimes a couple of hours) can be treacherous and self-defeating.  With enhanced computer networks which reevaluate information as it is fed with information concerning patterns of predictability, shifting atmospheric changes and spectrums of barometric alterations; cumulatively, a pie in the face is preferable despite advanced technologies allowing for respectable predictability.

Similarly, the medical field is expected to provide predictions of future events and as-yet unforeseen consequences.  Because medicine is considered a “science”, the level of accuracy is required beyond mere witch’s brew, or the spell of waved wand cast upon an unsuspecting eye.  Thus do doctors engage in percentages and probabilities; of mortality, X-percentage, give or take a few months, based upon studies delineated in some obscure journal presumably respected and hidden in the esoteric towers of ivory bastions.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the requirement for Federal and Postal employees includes information that the medical condition will last a minimum of 12 months (from the date of filing for Federal Disability Retirement).  Persistent and prevalent misinterpretation of this requirement pervades; one often hears the belief that the Federal or Postal employee must be away from work, or otherwise incapacitated, for that period of 12 months before filing.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

The requirement is merely one which denotes a prognosis or prediction, no more than what the medical field can predict and what the weather can portend.  It merely means that a Federal or Postal employee who suffers 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 positional duties, will be so prevented and impacted for a minimum of 12 months.

Any doctor worth his or her salt can provide a prognosis of how long the medical condition will last, and whether or not such a prognosis is as accurate as the 10-day forecast promulgated by weather entities is often irrelevant.  For, in the end, the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from the medical condition and who needs to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, knows in his or her “heart of hearts” how long the medical condition will last, whether it is for a day or a season, or a lifetime of chronicity requiring longterm care and treatment.

As one’s own body, mind and soul rarely mistakes the shifting changes of life, so the weather and prognosis of one’s own health can be established through the experience of pain, agony, and the pounding of deterioration perpetrated upon the vulnerability of a mortal being.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Pursuing the Daily Divide

The bifurcation of our lives is a habit of accepted normative behavior; for most, it is the simple divide between one’s personal life and professional endeavors; then, there are sub-categories of complicated spectrums, where criminal activity is pigeonholed from a daytime semblance of respectability, or deviant behavior is concealed from one’s reputation and facade of societal refinement.  Those separations make for ease of transition, or used to.

More and more, in modernity, the dividing lines have become obscured; work is performed from home, and personal, more private affairs are discussed and disseminated in the workplace.  The great equalizer of the daily divide is a medical condition.  For, when one leaves one’s home, you cannot leave behind the condition and pursue your professional life untouched; instead, because a medical condition is pervasive, remains with one until cured or kept in control or concealment, the stigma of the condition remains throughout.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who suffers 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 positional duties at the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, it becomes apparent quite quickly as to whether one can maintain the daily divide, to what extent, and whether effectively or not.

Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service have little room for patience, and less space for empathy or an accommodating outlook (used in a general sense, as opposed to the term of art which “accommodation” implies in the legal field of OPM Disability Retirement).  It becomes apparent quite quickly that the daily divide — of separating one’s personal life from the pursuit of professional endeavors — cannot be maintained, and it is time to divide the daily divide by preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Life is rarely a neatly-packaged ordeal, and the many years that we were able to fool ourselves into thinking that the daily divide would allow for an undisturbed bifurcation between the two universes, reveals the fragile nature of our own creations of artifices that remain shaky in their very foundations.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is often the approach of a pragmatist; the divide between one’s professional endeavors and one’s personal life was never anything but a cognitive dualism concocted by clever cheats; life was, and remains, the bundle of complexities entangled in the web of unpredictable mysteries, as is the human being.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Flavor of Our Times

Each generation has a flavor of the times — that obscure and fuzzy sense of “something” beyond which one cannot quite describe, but nevertheless leaves a distinctive aftertaste that remains and cannot be washed away.  Hypocrisy may come close to identifying it — of saying one thing, meaning another; of using words and virtual reality in order to conceal the true motive and intentions.  We see it in our politicians, in newspapers and neighborly barbecues; as truth is not the sought-after goal, and as relativism and the capacity to perform linguistic gymnastics at every turn of words, so the natural consequence of our deeds should not surprise us.  We claim empathy, but act indifferently; we teach our kids grandiose belief-systems, then act surprised when rebellion monitors the day.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, the stark reality of what they hear as the “official” pronouncement of one’s agency, as opposed to the practical and day-to-day occurrence and action in “real time”, is like the echoing chasm of a hollow pit which reverberates with each unintelligible sound.  All of the rules and regulations promulgated for public consumption about protecting the rights of disabled Federal employees sound like collected baseball cards reserved for showing off to guests who are gullible enough to gasp with excitement over items of dubious value; but it is the “behind-the-scenes” reality of how individuals treat each other, which tells the true story of shame, deceit and indifference.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents him or her from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the gap between declared public policy and the reality of that insular shame, is a daily recognition of man’s inhumanity to his or her fellow man or woman.  Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers experience this violation daily.  That is why opting to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often the best, only, and remaining self-preservation option, to secure one’s future and to separate from Federal Service with a semblance of dignity.

Federal Disability Retirement benefits, filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, allows for the Federal or Postal employee to obtain a base annuity, then go into the private sector and begin to pursue a second, or third, vocation of choice.  It is not an abandonment of one’s principles, nor a retreat from one’s beliefs. That was already accomplished years ago, when the flavor of our times became the official stance of an uncaring system which betrayed the dedicated Federal or Postal employee merely because of a medical condition beyond one’s control.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire