OPM Disability Retirement Attorney: Social Justice

Concurrent litigation entanglements occur often enough; if one has the capacity and ability to compartmentalize life, such multi-adversarial offensives can be effectively coordinated.  At the same time, however, it is important to recognize the folly of spreading oneself too thin; history confirms the defeats suffered at the principle of too much, too soon, as in Germany’s incursion on the Eastern Front while taking on North Africa and the entrance of the United States into a reluctant war.

Strategies of logistical considerations, as well as pragmatic considerations of finances, must always be a factor; thus, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who face a future with an ongoing medical condition which prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, consideration should be given to concurrent filings.

If an injury or medical condition is “work-related“, there is nothing wrong with filing for OWCP/DOL benefits, while at the same time filing for OPM Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  If both are approved, the Federal or Postal employee has the option of choosing to activate one, and allowing the other to be approved but remain passive.

Filing for Social Security Disability benefits, for those Federal and Postal employees under FERS, is a mandatory requirement during the process of filing for OPM Disability Retirement, anyway, so obviously the concurrent nature of filing is a necessary given.

When considering more far-reaching litigation entanglements, however, such as filing an EEOC Complaint potentially leading to a trial in the Federal Courts, pause should be given, if only because of the statistical disadvantage and high cost of such litigation.  A 2009 WSJ Article found that EEO discrimination lawsuits fared worst in statistical analysis in wins-to-losses ratio, and more recent studies do not provide greater encouragement.

While the recent focus upon the Pao v. Kleiner Perkins case would seem to highlight such statistical disadvantage, at the same time, one must recognize that the particular court case was a gender discrimination case filed and tried in state court, not in Federal Court, and each case reflects the complexity of the uniqueness of a particular set of facts.

The point here, however, is that while statistical analysis certainly can be skewed based upon a multiplicity of complex factors, for Federal and Postal employees who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, a pragmatic assessment should be made which asks, at a minimum, the following:  Do I want to be involved in a protracted litigation with my supervisors, agency and coworkers?  What is the purpose of my filing for Federal Disability Retirement?  Is the cost-to-benefit analysis sufficient in justifying litigation?  What is my definition of “Social Justice”?

For Federal and Postal employees, filing for, and obtaining, Federal Disability Retirement benefits is a practical exit from one compartmentalized stage of life; there is awaiting the next stage, of which Shakespeare reminds us all.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Law: Leaving behind the Corybantic Dance Hall

Employment which fails to accommodate one’s disabling conditions is inherently and obviously detrimental to one’s health; when it exacerbates and further deteriorates, it is all the more time to consider parting ways.

Dancing is a medium of enjoyment and entertainment which is a passing cultural phenomena. The rhythm of two people in a constancy of coordinated steps and movements; the self-centered, egoistic age of the modern era denies the ability or capacity to engage in such in-tune embracing of efforts.

Ugliness, in contrast to the beauty of graceful dancing, is characterized by lack of coordination, stumbling, singularly separated movements lacking in attention to other motions; a self-centered continuum of disjointed gyrations. Agencies are like dance halls. Some are replete with coordinated rhythms of bodies moving, graceful in efficiency of stylistic constancy. Others reveal an ugliness and uncaring attitude, like two drunkards lost in worlds of self-pity and attending only to one’s selfish needs.

Federal employees, early in their careers, are invited to various dance halls, and the choices made may have changed over the years.  Perhaps the music has changed; there is a new DJ at the helm; or maybe the frenzied lack of gracefulness was less bothersome in one’s youth.  But at some point the dance hall itself, and the participants of such ugliness, have come to the fore, and it may just be time to leave it all behind.

Chronically ill Federal employees or injured U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, must sometimes leave behind the dance hall, the music, and the partners with whom one once danced.  Federal Disability Retirement is an option open at the exit door of the corybantic dance hall. It is an administrative process which is submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker is under FERS or CSRS.

As time passes by, the frenzied antics of one’s youth may need to be left behind, and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM may be a necessity in order to attain a level of calm and quietude, away from the dance hall which contributes, exacerbates, or exponentially quantifies one’s medical conditions which need attending to in order to consider any future at all.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire