In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, it is never a good idea to proceed with excessive reliance (or any at all, for that matter) upon expected or presumed actions on the part of one’s Agency.
The preponderance of the evidence in proving an OPM Disability Retirement application is always upon the Federal or Postal worker, and one should affirmatively and pro-actively proceed without regard to what the Agency will do, says it will do, or might do during the process.
Yes, the Agency has its portion to complete; yes, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management does review the entirety of the OPM Federal Disability Retirement packet, including the standard forms which the agency must complete, along with other personnel information that is forwarded to OPM.
But the crux and essence of a Federal Disability Retirement applications always remains the medical information gathered and submitted, along with the Applicant’s Statement of Disability, in conjunction with the asserted nexus constructed between one’s medical condition and the positional duties of one’s job.
Any other approach is merely to run a fool’s errand for a fiefdom from which one is attempting to flee.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
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FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Federal and USPS Workers: The Limitation of Agency Actions
Often, in the process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, the client will ask the question, “Well, doesn’t that prove that I can’t do the job?” Such a question invariably points to some action by the Agency — a letter or a memorandum; a statement which the Supervisor made, etc. While it may be true that the Agency believes that a Federal or Postal employee is unable to perform, or is not performing, all of the essential elements of the job, remember that actions of the Agency can never replace the affirmative burden of proof that one is unable, medically, to perform the essential elements of one’s job.
One must keep in mind that the Office of Personnel Management is a separate Agency which is not necessarily in communication with the Agency which employs the Federal or Postal employee. The “mindset” of the Agency is not being considered by the Office of Personnel Management. Whatever the motivations of the Agency in doing what it is or will do, is to a great extent irrelevant to OPM. What the Agency is doing may well indicate “proof” as to other issues — i.e., inability to accommodate; acknowledgment that certain essential elements of one’s job is not being performed, etc. — but it does not prove that an individual is unable, as a result of a medical condition, to perform all of the essential elements of the job. Only a doctor can do that.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
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