When a Federal Disability Retirement case has been denied by the Office of Personnel Management at the Initial Stage of the application process, and then again at the Reconsideration Stage of the administrative process, then it must be appealed to the Merit Systems Protection Board. At that stage, the applicant (with the help of his or her attorney) must meet some crucial dates.
While the Administrative process of having a Hearing before the Merit Systems Protection Board is fairly straightforward, once the Prehearing Statements are filed, it is important to participate in the Prehearing Conference with the Administrative Judge. At the Prehearing Conference, it is important to define and limit the issues which will have to be proven at the Hearing of the case. Issues such as accommodations and even the extent of the medical conditions which impact one’s inability to perform the essential elements of one’s job, can be clearly defined. The individual (but more likely the attorney — because at this level, it is helpful to have the guidance of an attorney) should be very familiar with entirety of the Agency file (a copy of which OPM is required to provide after an appeal is filed with the MSPB). This way, during the conversation with the Administrative Judge, one can say: “Yes, Your Honor, that is already proven by document at Tab ____ of the Agency file, and need not be re-proven at the Hearing of the case.” As with everything in life, preparation, preparation, preparation…
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: OPM Disability Process - 3rd Stage: MSPB Stage | Tagged: applying for federal disability, avoiding unnecessary issues with the Admin Judge during the OPM Disability process, civil service disability, defining what issues to are to be argued during the mspb appeal, disability retirement at the USPS, discerning important from irrelevant medical issues in your opm disability claim, federal disability law blog, federal disability lawyer, federal medical retirement, FERS disability retirement, filing for OPM disability retirement, focusing on the direct issues, how to narrow issues during appeal, how to simplify an opm disability appeal at the mspb level, issues before and after the opm disability application, issues to be aware of during the opm disability process, law firm representing clients in opm disability law all across america, maintaining the focus in the most important opm disability issues, Merit Systems Protection Board, Merit Systems Protection Board and OPM disability, MSPB Administrative Judge (AJ), MSPB disability lawyer, narrowing down to the most important issues during the mspb pre-hearing conference, nexus between medical disability and job performance, OPM disability retirement, opm disability retirement and how to overcome the mspb obstacle, owcp disability retirement, paying attention to the time limits of the opm disability process appeals, Post Office disability, postal disability retirement blog, postal service disability retirement, Prehearing Conference at the MSPB, representing federal employees from any us government agency, taking your fers disability claim to the administrative judge, the light duty federal employee and the uncharted waters of the mspb stage, the scrutiny of the administrative law judge, time limits for opm mspb appeals, using the mspb prehearing conference to your advantage, USPS disability retirement, usps filing merit system protection board, when the injured federal worker sails into unknown waters | Leave a comment »
