Federal and Postal Disability Retirement: Why Up to 1 Year?

In filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, why should a person be given up to 1 year after separation from Federal Service, to file for the benefits?  The underlying legal rationale can be conflicting, but there are multiple pragmatic reasons why such a statute allowing for a person to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits up to 1 year after separation from service, is “reasonable” and “sound in judgment”. 

Often, Federal and Postal employees get fired before the proper forms or medical documentation can be completed or gathered; proposed terminations and determinations on the proposals can come about quickly; a Federal or Postal employee who is focused upon getting treatment (surgery; psychiatric treatment, etc.) can be left with a sense of being overwhelmed, and incapable of filing for a benefit which requires rational thought, procedural organization, and an ability to be systematic in approaching the entire process; a person may not fully comprehend or appreciate the extent of a medical condition, and may quit, resign, or file for early retirement with a lesser annuity, feeling isolated and beset with a sense of hopelessness in not “having any other choice” but to walk away from the Federal or Postal job he or she loved; suffer from a Reduction-in-Force (RIF), and think that because of the RIF that disability retirement was not an option (it often is); and many other reasons.  Indeed, there is a rational and logical basis for allowing for the 1-year timeframe of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, after the Federal or Postal worker has been removed or separated from Federal Service.  On top of it all, to allow for it is simply “fair”.

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