OPM Disability Retirement: Unequivocal Doesn’t Mean That One Is “Right”

In a denial letter from the Office of Personnel Management, the Claims Specialist/Representative will often make statements in confident, unequivocal terms.  “You have not…”   “The medical evidence fails to show…”    “Your doctor never…”   “The law requires that you…”  Such a voice of unequivocal confidence often leaves the impression that there is no room for argument; that the case is lost; that there really is no point in even attempting to argue with the Office of Personnel Management.  Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Merely because an individual makes statements in an unequivocal manner, is not a basis for determining the truth or falsity of his or her argument.  In a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS, there is almost always room for disagreement.  We are speaking about interpretation of medical documents, the significance of what is said, etc.  We are talking about the different and proper application of the OPM Disability law, and the multitude of case-law which would be applicable.  Don’t let the voice of a statement fool you as to the validity of the statement.  In a Federal Disability Retirement case, the Office of Personnel Management is rarely right; they just like to sound like they are.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal and Postal Disability Retirement: The Tyranny of Logic

The general concept of ‘tyranny’ is normally reserved for extreme cases of autocratic emblems of dictatorships, governmental overreaching, denial of due process, etc., and is rarely used in addressing issues arising in Federal Disability Retirement laws governing Federal and Postal workers who are attempting to access an employment benefit which is part of the Federal and Postal employment package — that of Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS.  In this use of the term, however, it is in conjoining two independent concepts:  that of ‘tyranny’ and that of ‘logic’.  The compounding of the terms results in a concept which is applicable in a positive sense.  Allow me to explain. 

In the course of filing for Federal or Postal disability retirement benefits, when one is denied at any level of the administrative process, one has a right to a further appeal.  Thus, if the application for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is denied at the First Stage of the process, then you have a right to have it ‘reconsidered’ (called the “Reconsideration Stage“, appropriately).  If it is denied a second time, you then have the right to file an appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board — and beyond.  At each stage of the process, one hopes that in the review and evaluation of the Federal Disability Retirement application, first by the Office of Personnel Management, then by an Administrative Judge, then by a Federal Appellate Judge, that a set of legal criteria is fairly and uniformly applied, such that the ‘tyranny of logic’ rules.  In this sense, ‘tyranny’ is meant to apply in a positive sense, in that a logical, fair and uniform application of the law is applied to the set of facts presented by the Federal or Postal disability retirement application.  This all assumes, of course, that somewhere along the line of the ‘food-chain’ of review, that someone has been exposed to either logic, logical argumentation, or the ‘rules of logic’.  Hope springs eternally.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire