Postal and Federal Disability Retirement: Persuasion

Persuasion is a funny animal; when it is effective, success is determined by the reversal of an opponent’s viewpoint, but if it is ineffective, mere silence ensues, and unless prompted by subsequent queries, one never knows how close one came to persuading another and what further evidence or argumentation may have pushed the other side over the edge.

Then, of course, there is always the question of whether the opposing party is open to persuasion or not, and what are the conditions within which it may occur.  The danger lies especially when an organization or bureaucracy has become so powerful or autocratic that it need not ever be persuaded because there are no consequences to being left unpersuaded.

The presence of outside safeguards is often necessary for persuasion to have its salutary effect, as a more obscure sense of “fair play” is often not enough to make a difference.  All of this, of course, doesn’t even touch upon the substantive content of what constitutes a persuasive argument, as context is often just as important as content (anyone who has been married will immediately understand the truth of this statement).

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have submitted a FERS Medical Retirement claim with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (also known for its acronym “OPM”) and have received an initial denial and must now respond to the denial at the Reconsideration Stage of the Process, “persuasiveness” becomes the battle cry in preparing the proper response.

OPM has all the time in the world in preparing its denial and needs little basis in its persuasive content.  They merely need to have some minimal basis of reasons to issue a denial.  On the other hand, the denied Federal or Postal applicant has (A) a very short timeframe in responding and (B) must advance a heavy burden of proof in order to overcome the denial, despite the often scatter-brained content of an OPM Denial.

Furthermore, in preparing a reconsideration Response, one should always keep in mind that the targeted audience is not just OPM, but the next stage in the event that OPM remains unpersuaded — that of the Admin Judge at the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).  That is why any response to an OPM Initial Denial should include a recitation of the relevant case laws discussing why your particular case meets the legal criteria for an approval.

As with spousal arguments and discussions around the Holiday dinner table, context matters as much as context when trying to persuade the other side.  And also in preparing a persuasive response, you may want to consider consulting with a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer specializing exclusively in FERS Medical Retirement Law.

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: Formulating the Reconsideration Rebuttal

It is a frustrating process when the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issues a denial and the Federal employee or Postal Service worker must respond effectively within a limited prescribed time.  OPM has all the time in the world to prepare the denial letter, and will often take as long as they want in preparing a lengthy denial letter.

Once received, the denied Federal applicant has 30 days from the date of the denial to “Request Reconsideration” and will be granted 30 additional days beyond the time requested in order to submit any legal response and additional documentary evidence in support of your case.  Then, within that prescribed time period, a response must be prepared and submitted.

It is this formulation of substantive responsiveness that will determine the future course of the next steps — whether a subsequent denial will require a further appeal to the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, or with approval of the application, the end of the bureaucratic process has occurred and the next frustrating phase of waiting for the payment department to begin issuing annuity payments will ensue.

As with all things with unlimited time on one’s hands, OPM will extract every word and phrase from doctor’s notes and office visits, take them out of context and interpret everything in favor of denial.

It is often an overwhelming process of a “shotgun approach” where OPM attempts to make it appear as though (A) You were ridiculous in even trying to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits and/or (B) what you had submitted previously was entirely insufficient and need not even be considered any further.

The net effect of the denial letter is to leave you with the impression that you should forget about the whole thing and just give up.  Don’t be fooled by this tactic, because that is all that it is — a ploy to just convince you to give up.

Instead, break down OPM’s arguments into manageable categories, of which the two primary ones are: (1) lack of showing of a deficiency in performance, conduct, or attendance and/or (2) insufficient medical documentation.  Then, attempt to gather any further documentation to reinforce those weak links and argue how the caselaw or statute is met with the additional supportive documents.

One other reminder: So long as you have met the timeframe of requesting reconsideration  within that 30-day period, you have a chance at winning your case —so, make sure you file the request in a timely fashion.  And, furthermore, you may want to contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law to help you formulate an effective response.

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 Law: Of Future Events

Are we the only species which imagines, worries, obsesses over — of future events as yet unfulfilled?  Do we create scenarios from “whole cloth” of events which might occur but which often never come to fruition?

Of course, the past is a good indicator of future events — a harbinger and foreboding of storms to come; the present, of predictors based upon current trends; and of the future, whether seen in the coiling bundles of anxious imaginations or steeped within solid predicates that cannot be ignored; and in the end, it is this species called “human beings” who engage in such folly.  But for such insanities, we would not have stock markets and commodities “futures” to bet upon.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who worry about their futures because of a health crisis which prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of his or her job, worries and anxieties about the future can be daunting, overwhelming, and obsessively of concern.

The future must be planned for; the present circumstances need to be dealt with in order to plan for that future; and the past actions of your agency are probably a good indicator of future events.

Contact an OPM Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin planning for your future by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under FERS; for, in the end, it is up to the greater predictor of future events to embrace the inevitabilities of life’s misfortunes, taking the past into account, facing the present circumstances with a direct and serious assessment, and thus correlating the past and present to prepare for future eventualities.

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 Disability Retirement under FERS: The Power-Mixer Approach

You’ve seen those ads for the Power-Mixer — those super lightning-speed mixers which can make a slurpee out of anything.  Arguments are often like that — of an admixture of law, woven with partial facts, sprinkled with authoritative declaratives, and voila!

One has a Denial from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  It looks powerful; it sounds ominous; it even quotes from your own medical records and reports (albeit, often out of context and without legal relevance).  It will even declare: “You have been denied Social Security Disability Income benefits by the Social Security Administration.”  One shivers, cowers and trembles with fright at the powerful Power-Mixer Approach.

Don’t buy it.  Don’t cower.  Don’t be intimidated.  Such an approach is meant to frighten, as all Power-Mixer approaches are formulated for that very purpose.

Instead, contact a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin to counter and rebut the Power-Mixer approach by getting fresh new ingredients for a systematic and more powerful legal argumentation of efficacy and legal relevance.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement: Life on Hold

There are periods in our lives when life is seemingly “on hold”.  Of times when we know not what to do; of careers that have hit a brick wall; of unhappiness over present circumstances; perhaps even of deteriorating family relationships that fail to reveal a glimmer of hope for improvement; and of a medical condition that becomes chronic with the realization that we must accept it, live with it, and endure the accompanying symptoms for a life-long struggle.

Filing for a Federal Disability Retirement benefit under FERS or CSRS, or even CSRS Offset (though rare are the latter two these days) is often a movement forward to break out of the mold of life being on hold.

When a Federal or Postal worker realizes that the medical condition suffered will simply not go away, and it prevents and continues to deteriorate in that aspect of preventing the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, that sense of being stuck in a “no-man’s land” is understandable.

From the Agency’s viewpoint, it is often a period where they are unsure of what to do with you.  They act with a timid sense of empathy (or perhaps none at all); they will sometimes be somewhat “supportive” of your plight; but in the end, you know that they will replace you with someone who can perform all of the essential elements of the position.

Life on hold is a time of uncertainty and trepidation; preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset is a movement forward; it allows for some certainty to be adjudicated in a world where everyone else seems to be in a mode of “fast-forward” while you are stuck in the timelessness of a deteriorating medical condition.

Life on Hold — it is a time when decisions need to be made, and for the Federal or Postal employee who can no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of his or her Federal or Postal job because of a medical condition, a time to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be ultimately submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Information: Strategy

Without one, military operations are doomed at the outset; with one, one can retain a false sense of security within the relative insularity of a conceptual paradigm.

Strategies need to be malleable and adaptable; otherwise, when the hypothetical hits the practical, the seams of a well-knit sweater can quickly begin to come apart.  That is why the best chess players have already considered not only ten moves ahead, but an exponential number of alternative reactions based upon each move’s counteraction; and the Master Go player, likewise, has already foreseen the pattern of a full board before placing the first piece upon the criss-crossing lines that bring about the pattern of completion.

A strategy is never the final plan; it is not even an intermediate one; it is, instead, the preplanning of a plan that must develop as one encounters reality within the universe of a mental construct already imposing upon the future foretelling of a past yet unknown and unknowable.  As a noun, it may remain fallow and inert, ineffective to the vicissitudes of realty’s modifications; but as an active verb, to “strategize” is merely to foretell of an initial action, always ready to abide by the encounters which reality forces, and be willing to react to unpredictable modifications that compel a correlative counterpoint.

Perhaps one’s life did not unfold in a pattern expected, predicted, or otherwise desired; no matter, for there are other strategies to pursue when life forces change and modification upon us.

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, it may be time to “strategize” a 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.

Life-choices need a strategy; the strategy for the Federal employee or Postal worker, when injured or otherwise unable to perform the full duties of one’s job, is to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement, and the first step in strategizing is to contact an attorney who specializes in the Law of Federal Disability Retirement and to begin initiating the steps necessary for a strategy of efficacy and success.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The vacation that wasn’t

When is a vacation no longer one?  Is it when we take work with us, sit upon the sands of timeless recreation — but with a laptop or a pile of papers that are kept weighted down by a crumpled towel and children asking or demanding for immediacy of attention becoming distant noises of irritation and not the gaiety of sharing?

Or, is the intrusion upon our insular universe — you know, the mind’s eye behind the blank stare; the constant rumination of what we expect and anticipate upon our return; the angst over the backup of emails that will await us upon our return; the fear and knowledge that some devious action has been planned for by our boss or coworkers, or perhaps both in conjunction within a conspiratorial scheme no longer veiled with declared foreknowledge and barely hidden beneath the seething tides of backstabbing dominions?

Even that 3-day weekend, or the weekly routine of the 2-day weekend; they are no longer refreshments from the toil and rumination of worry and anxiety, panic-stricken with sleepless nights and dreams that once gave a fading smile but now urging you to wake up in the middle of the night drenched in pools of sweat for nightmares that won’t leave you alone.

The vacation that wasn’t — isn’t — is the one that no longer refreshes and cannot be looked forward to because the anticipation of what will be left behind becomes too overwhelming to bear.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition has begun to prevent the performance of one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal position, when the vacation that cannot be taken is the one that cannot be enjoyed becomes a constancy of regressive acts of futility, then it is time to consider 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.

Where weekends merely become a refuge to recuperate for the following Monday, but where such rest and attempted refreshment is merely likened to the proverbial struggle of rearranging the chairs upon a sinking ship, then consideration must be given to the quality of one’s life, as opposed to the quantity of life’s misgivings.

The vacation that wasn’t — it is the one that no longer refreshes because one’s medical condition has exceeded any benefits derived from trying to do more than what the body will any longer allow for, and that is the time to then consider preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, so that you may focus upon the priorities of life: One’s health and future well-being.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Law: The face in the mirror

Some avoid it; others run to it like an obsession that cannot be abandoned; and for most, it is merely a daily habit that must be tolerated.

The face in the mirror that we view in order to “present” ourselves to the world is the one we are born with, attempt to alter in multiple ways throughout different stages of life – perhaps by artificial means ranging in spectral thunders of surgical alterations, color-dying, parting the hair on the left side instead of the right; trying to cover that growing bald plate that shines like a heavenly orb not needing the assistance of the Hubbell Telescope from afar in galaxies far and wide; of make-up, lipstick colors and hair-style alterations; and yet, somehow, it is those eyes that stare back that seem to pierce within.

And what of that image we hold; was it the imprint from our youth that forever became frozen in the timeless synergies of our inner consciousness?  Does the reflection in the mirror last, for some, for only a second, such that we have to run back to it – whether by the closely-held compact in the purse, the reflection in the store window, or even that oblong shape of a car’s side contraptions – and reassure ourselves that it has not changed much since the last encounter?

Or is it the image we continue to hold onto as that innocent child of long ago who forever swore that neither time, old age nor ravages of bygone years would ever defeat the compliments received and which we hold so dearly?

It is, in the end, the eyes – what Plato described as the windows to one’s soul – that tell the tale of a person’s past.  Does it haunt?  Does it enliven?  Will it glitter and sparkle like the moon’s reflection upon a summer’s pond in its tranquility of calm?  Or does life bring such sorrow within the chasms in between, where the haggard look befalls and betrays the unhappiness residing within?

We need not look in the mirror to gather much that we already know, and yet we keep going back and speaking to that ghostly appearance reversed in proportionality as the negative photograph that smiles when we smile, cries when we cry, but feels not the inner pain that grows with each day.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are at a point in their lives that filing for Federal Disability Retirement must be considered, it is a critical point to consider when you look at the face in the mirror – for, the reflection seen is often not the “real” person that stands in front of the mirror, and the “appearance” is never the essence of the inner soul concealed.  That is the sad truth when dealing with the Federal agency or the Postal facility; they all see “you” as “that person who has a medical condition and is no longer as productive as he/she used to be”.

That is why filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits often becomes a necessity, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset – because the face in the mirror is just that – a reflection of unreality – that doesn’t ever reveal the truth of one’s potentiality in a universe that barely cares beyond the appearance of reality.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Civil Service: The Clock

It is an interesting device.  We can try and project back to a time of its non-existence, or at least when not every household owned one.  What could it have been like?  Where the hour was guessed at by the position of the sun – or was that not even part of the thought process?  Did the sun, dawn, dusk and twilight merely present a foreboding for a different paradigm?

Certainly, minutes and seconds likely had conceptual meaninglessness, and everyone worked, played and lived for the “moment”, without great regard or concern for the next day, the following season, or a decade hence.  Ship’s captains had a greater sense of future foreboding, though not necessarily of time, but of oncoming storms or changes in the currents; farmers lived season to season, and fretted as they still do about droughts or floods that might destroy crops; but as we entered into modernity, it was the grind of the clock that set the day for the city dweller, where payment for labor earned was remitted not by the rising and setting of the sun, but by increments of hours, minutes and labor beyond the darkness of a day ended.

At what point did time entrap us into a thought-process of expectancy that destroys the joy of a living moment?

If Friday provides a needed anticipation for a weekend of rest and repose, we immediately destroy and capacity to enjoy it by looking at the clock and realizing how many hours and minutes have passed by, and further denigrate our ability to appreciate by calculating the remainder of time.  We can become obsessed with the clock – its ticking diminution by projecting the decrease; the foreboding of what is yet to come, though it is merely within our minds; and the constant checking of incremental living of a life as against the clock that rules.

Medical conditions tend to remind us of the clock; or, perhaps it is the opposite, where the clock reminds us of our mortality when we suffer from a medical condition.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application may become a necessity, the clock can serve as both a reminder as well as an obsession of foreboding thought processes.

Yes, the clock is likely ticking in a proverbial sense in terms of the Agency or the U.S. Postal Service having the patience (does such an animal exist for either?) in trying to “work with” the medical condition (a euphemism often interpreted as, “You better become fully productive soon, or else”), but in a more real sense, the Federal or Postal employee must make a decision at some point as to the prioritizing of one’s health as opposed to the positional elements of the job which is increasingly becoming more and more difficult to fulfill.

By law, the Federal or Postal employee who is released, separated or terminated (yes, there is a distinction between the three, but for the Federal employee of Postal worker, not enough of significance to define them here), the Federal or Postal employee can file for Federal Disability Retirement within one (1) year of such separation from service.  Certainly, in that instance, the clock begins to tick, and not just in a proverbial sense but in real legal terms.  One need not, however, wait for such an event to realize the clock’s significance; watching the clock as the medical condition continues to deteriorate, is reminder enough that time rules us each day whether or not we succumb to it, or not.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Early Medical Retirement from Federal Government: Berkeley’s House

He was an Irishman, and if one were to “rank” philosophers, he would likely be considered a “second tier” thinker — not quite at the level of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes or Heidegger — but certainly contributed to the Western Philosophical tradition of engendering even greater questions than solving any problems or settling any queries.

A little tidbit which is not commonly known: Bishop Berkeley came to the United States and purchased a plantation at Middletown, intending upon living there, until his expectation of funding failed to be forthcoming.  That is probably what he is least known for; the Latin phrase for which he gains the greatest notoriety, is esse est percipi — to be, is to be perceived.

An absurd and uncharitable interpretation of this foundational phrase, would be to attribute to Berkeley the idea that things in the objective world exist only to the extent that we perceive them; the moment such perceptual pervasiveness disappears, then, existence becomes extinguished.

A more rational view of his postulate, however, is to attribute Berkeley to the tradition of British linguistic philosophers, and to consider the following “implied” but silent intentions:  “The definition of what it means to exist, can only have meaning if, and only if, there is a perceiver for which the object is there to be perceived, and as such, existence as a concept of any meaningful import must by necessity have a perceiver”.

Without this kinder, gentler version of interpretive connotations, all manner of ridicule and scoffing have been thrown at the good Bishop — in the form of:  “So, when I leave a room, does it vanish?  And when I return, does it suddenly reappear?”  And in the days of Star Trek:  “Beam me up, Scottie, or in philosophical circles, Bishop Berkeley”.

It is, in the end, the absurdity of linguistic interpretation which ultimately relegated Berkeley to the “second tier” of philosophical thought; and from that unintended consequences resulting from an attempt to resolve a complex issue of metaphysical discourse, we can learn and discern much:  complexity sometimes cannot be circumvented with simplicity of declarative assertion; often, there is a reason why such a conundrum of linguistic inelasticity exists.

Thus, for the Federal employee or U.S. Postal Service worker who is intending upon preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the key point here is that, yes, your case may be quite complex, but the route to making it comprehensible to the administrative specialist at OPM, is not to try and simplify the core essence of the case, but to state the complex in simple language.

That is often the greatest difficulty with a Federal or Postal applicant in preparing one’s Statement of Disability on Standard Form 3112A — the narrative in response to the various questions will often meander and fail to achieve a coherency because everything from Dickens’ childhood details (which, as you may recall, Salinger scoffed at in his famous work, The Catcher in the Rye) to peripheral issues involved EEO complaints and workplace harassment concerns are thrown in for good or seemingly better measure, when in fact a simplified version based upon good habits of editing would produce a more effective statement of compelling narration.

For, in the end, postulating a Federal Disability Retirement application is not a matter of compiling a voluminous or complex treatise for persuasive discourse; it is to tell a coherent story of one’s inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties with the Federal job or Postal position, and we need not defer to Berkeley’s House — whether as a historical tidbit or as the confounded thought processes extracted from his complex works — in order to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal OPM Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire