U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board & Disability Retirement: The Quiet Case

There are a significant amount — of the one’s without a fanfare, no formal MSPB opinion, but nevertheless, a “win”.

Many Federal and Postal employees get to that Stage — Stage 3 — an appeal to the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board.  At this Stage, all reasonable attempts to persuade the medical specialists at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management have failed.

At the First Stage of the process, you filed your best shot and provided the utmost of medical documentation, but they denied you, anyway.  Perhaps it was because your previous year’s performance ratings were excellent, and you may have even received a cash award.  Or, maybe the medical opinions of your doctors were not sufficient.  Maybe OPM wasn’t persuaded that your condition would last at least 12 months.

Whatever the reasons, you had to go through the Second Stage of the process — the Reconsideration Stage.  You gathered whatever else you could, and submitted it within the timeframe allotted.  You hoped for the best.  When the denial came — the Second Denial — you knew you were in trouble.  The MSPB?  How are you going to maneuver through that complex maze before an Administrative Judge?

And this is essentially the “last stop” — for, if you don’t win it here, you will likely not prevail at a Petition for Review, and going to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals is prohibitively expensive, and likely not winnable.  Yet, the MSPB opens up a great opportunity — for, what most people don’t realize, is that it is an opportunity for “the Quiet Win”.

Before you ever go to a Hearing on the case; before you have to prepare your Pre-Hearing Submissions — it is an opportunity to listen carefully to the OPM Representative assigned to your case.  If you listen carefully, you will have the opportunity to quietly and behind the scenes, submit additional evidence which could result in that 2.5 Stage of the process — between the Denial of the Reconsideration Stage and the Hearing before an Administrative Judge at the MSPB.

Of course, it will help if you also have an experienced FERS Disability Retirement Attorney involved, who can help you through the “Quiet Case.”

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Lawyer exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

FERS Disability Retirement: The Grief of Life

“Good Grief, Charlies Brown!”  It is an expression of exasperation, often emitted from Lucy’s mouth during the long run of the Peanuts’ comic strip.  The phrase itself is undefined, and yet most of us comprehend its import: That life itself is a series of grief-filled moments; of mistakes and failures; of acts which people engage in that belie understanding; that the puzzlement and conundrum of events that hit us, emotions that arise and how people behave result in grief untold.

It is well that a child is often protected from the grief of adulthood, lest the child be damaged even before he or she enters the harsh reality of the greater world.  Yet, like raindrops that fall from the sky and, on its spiraling journey downwards, accumulates all of the dirt and grime of the world, so the grief of life begins to take it toll upon us all as we interact and encounter the sheer meanness of the world.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the grief of life takes two forms: First, the medical condition itself and the impact upon one’s career and positional duties, and Second, from the uncaring attitude from the Agency, the Postal Service, and coworkers who make up the aggregation of the “agency” itself.  Such a “double whammy” is often the impetus to contact a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Consult with an OPM Disability Attorney who focuses purely upon getting people Federal Disability Retirement benefits in order to limit the impact of engaging in the bureaucratic complexities of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits; otherwise, like Charlie Brown and others in the Peanuts gang, you may end up shouting in exasperation, “Good Grief!”

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement under FERS: Balancing the Unfair Advantage

It is the advantage itself — whether by one side or of the other — which creates an imbalance to occur, and it is thus the greater weight on either side defines and constitutes the unfairness of it all.  A weighted scale; a pair of loaded dice (it was once the case that such a phrase — “pair of dice” — was unnecessary, because the singular of “dice” was die, and to identify ”dice” was to necessarily state the obvious that it was a pair; but in Modern Standard English, the word “dice” now represents both the singular as well as the plural; but we digress); a biased referee; a bribed umpire — do these all have something in common?

No, this is not an IQ Test (remember those questions where you are given a series of words and you had to either choose the one that would fit into the same category or exclude the one that was a misfit?), but it does symbolize the state of affairs in so much of life.

Where unfairness abounds, it is often the concealed aspect which tips the balance in favor of one side or another.  Thus do politicians allow for silent exceptions within the detailed language of legislation; undeclared biases determine advantages otherwise unidentified; insider information gives the unfair advantage to stock traders and members on financial boards and subcommittees; and the team which steals the rubric of the other’s signals and signs gains the advantage both in predicting future behaviors and battles.

In law, who has the unfair advantage?  Is it the entity who fails to explicitly define the criteria which determines success?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, just remember that filing a Federal Disability Retirement application guarantees nothing.

The legal criteria inherent in the process; the administrative procedures which must be advanced; the supporting documentation that must be submitted; the answers on standard forms which must be completed — these are all within the purview of knowledge by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and is not easily comprehended by the unwary applicant.

Seek the counsel and guidance of a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin to balance the unfair advantage that OPM naturally and already possesses.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement Benefits: Stop & Go

The rhythm of our daily lives is a reminder of who we are, how we live; and so the necessity of transportation — of driving a car, riding a bus, and even of a subway or the more traditional train; of how we ride for a time, then stop; then, ride again for a further time, then stop.

The work day is set up in the same manner, with a parallel rhythmical indifference: We work furiously for a specified number of hours, then pause, stop for a while — perhaps eat our lunch, go and use the “facilities”, and then rush back to “ride” for a while by working again, only to stop again for a brief moment, eat dinner, sleep for a bit, etc.  Throughout that rhythmic process called “living life”, we try and avoid all of the calamities of known origins and unknown expectations — and like the accident on the road we try and avoid, the living calamities (e.g., injuries; divorce; death, etc.) are there at unknown places and in foretold quantities.

Medical conditions, the frailty of human health, the mortality of the common person — these are all part of the dangers in the “Go” process; and when they occur, they make us stop, thereby interrupting and disrupting the “going” in life’s rhythm and forcing us to stop.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the medical condition that “stops” the goals, dreams and anticipated future of the Federal or Postal employee becomes the disruptive force of the rhythmic expectations of a life’s transitioning process.

The expectation is to always be “on the go”; and the frustration which is palpable is the “stop” of the medical condition.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective FERS Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is what is often needed to put the vehicle of moving forward and placing a person’s life back into the “go” mode; for, remember that a medical condition must be attended to, and is not merely a short break from the rhythm of one’s life; it is, in fact, of life itself, and the priorities we place upon that which is important and essential: of focusing upon one’s health, which is the engine of every person’s rhythm of life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Information: The fatigue of hiding

That’s the rub, isn’t it — that we spend so much energy trying to conceal it, that by the time the truth comes out, we don’t even care, anymore, and are often glad for the revelation and the blessing of not having to mask it any longer?  Whatever the “it” is that we attempt to conceal, hide, ignore of otherwise fail to reveal, the fatigue of hiding it, the constant commerce engaged in bartering for more time, avoiding a direct encounter or otherwise trying desperately to veil the truth, leaves us exhausted and spent.

Is it, on the other hand, like a John Le Carre novel, where the secret that everyone is attempting to protect is already known by all powers, but the constant struggle to maintain its confidentiality is more for appearance’s sake, and not because of the vital information underlying the apparent need to conceal?

The fatigue of hiding is indeed the exhausting effort being expended for what is otherwise known, or more importantly, wasted upon the known when the value of concealing is far surpassed by the toil engaged.  Medical conditions tend to do that — whether in trying to conceal it from ourselves by downplaying and minimizing the pain and loss of flexion, motion, movement or other numbness of feeling involved, or by attempting to hide it from others, such as employers, family or even friends who show some modicum of concern.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are trying desperately to cling on to their jobs in the Federal Sector or the U.S. Postal service, the fatigue of hiding can be overwhelming.  The factual state of affairs often defeats the continuing attempt to minimize and hide: the extent of LWOP having been used; FMLA already exhausted, and it isn’t even a new quarter; the piles of work being left unattended; and those furtive glances that are no longer established through suspicions of whispers and gossip, but clear rumblings of a Federal Agency that is moving to reprimand, warn, place on a PIP or propose removal based upon non-attendance or excessive use of Sick Leave; these are all clear indicators that the fatigue of hiding can no longer be further delayed.

Preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee believes that the future still holds some hope for remaining at the Federal or Postal job, is an important first step in acknowledging that the fatigue of hiding has come to a critical juncture that necessitates a step beyond hiding it — it is the time of reckoning where the effort wasted upon concealment needs now to be turned into a positive step towards securing one’s future by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, so that the fatigue of hiding can be turned back into that productive person of greater vitality you once were, and of whom everyone else once knew.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer Representation for OPM Disability Claims: The cluster of choices

Often, choices come in pairs, and the difficulty is in deciding between the binary alternatives offered.  Chocolate or vanilla?  Apple pie or cherry?  If taste were the sole determining factor, one can simply submit to the subliminal voices churning deep within the intestinal caverns of digestive tracts, and simply declare one as opposed to the other.  Of course, in such matters, one can “cheat”, and simply say to the host or hostess, “Oh, they both look so delicious, can I just have a small sliver of both?”

Why is it that if there are three or four to choose from, suddenly such a response shifts it into the category of gluttony, where people begin to look you up and down to see whether or not diet, exercise or lack of self-discipline is the problem?  Why is it, say, that there are various pies – apple, cherry, rhubarb and pumpkin, and you cannot choose between the four or more; is it okay to say at a dinner party, “Well, can I have a sliver of the apple and rhubarb”, but NOT to say, “Can I have a very small sliver of all four?” (or eight?) It is the cluster of choices that make for difficulties, almost in every sector of life.

Today, of course, the modernity of overload and the excessive, almost unlimited choices displayed, presented and given, makes for difficulties in the cognitive grey areas of the human mind.  Have human beings evolved sufficiently to be able to cope with such alternatives presented?

As a child, many decades ago, one remembers that the local “supermarket” merely had two, maybe three items on a shelf of any one product.  Ice cream shops had three or four flavors, and if there were five – well, we stood at the counter with amazed looks and couldn’t quite decide until Mom or Dad threatened to choose for us.

Does a lioness, or a cheetah, walk about through the wilds and come upon a herd of antelopes and pause because she cannot decide which one looks the most promising?  Or have the evolutionary stresses upon the fight to survive already determined the dominant characteristics that will prevail in such decision-making?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must decide when, how, and in what manner to file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, ultimately to be submitted through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the cluster of choices to choose from must be deliberative, with great seriousness, and with an approach that must look after one’s own best interests.

Often, however, because of the clouding of judgment wrought on resulting from one’s medical conditions – i.e., pain, profound fatigue, inability to focus and concentrate – it is difficult to separate between the cluster of choices given.  But Federal Disability Retirement requires a cogency of judgment, thought, decision-making and affirmation of choices, and in engaging this complex administrative process, it may be a good idea to consider consulting and hiring an experienced Federal Disability Retirement lawyer, in order to bifurcate between the cluster of choices presented, so that the best option and course of purposive actions can be embraced with a thoughtful and deliberative approach.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement Legal Representation: Sad stories

Is sadness relative?  Are there sad stories that are so sad that even the ones that were considered sad prior to the sadder story being told, somehow nullify the lesser sad stories and make them into not sad stories?  Do we, after hearing the sadder tale, turn to the first story teller and say, “Yours was not so sad, after all, and in fact you have it pretty good”?

If a person tells of having just buried his mother, and you ask, “How old was she?”  He responds, “She was 95”.  Then, someone else says, “I just had to bury my 5 year old daughter.”  There would be a dead silence, would there not?  Surely, we say to ourselves, the death of a person who had a long life is not nearly as sad as the ending of one so tender in years, and as death is merely a part of life, there is something inherently sadder about the child’s life ending than that of a person who had a long life?

Both represent a life ended, but it is the knowledge that the former had fulfilled the natural course of a life while the latter was the victim of an early tragedy, unnaturally ended and interrupted for all of its promise, hope and anticipation for the future – surely, there is a qualitative difference between the two sad tales?

Or of someone who was recently fired from a job and is desperately trying to seek new employment; say that person is looking through the want-ads in the employment section (yes, yes, that is entirely outdated nowadays with special apps for resume-sharing and online submissions, etc.), and in the course of searching, reads a story about a far-off country where war, famine and general devastation are ongoing, and discovers with interest a sub-story about a family that is homeless and is being hunted down by enemies, etc.  Does one at that point straighten one’s posture and declare, “Wow, even though I am jobless, I have it pretty good in comparison to that family in country X”?

Yet, if sadness is relative, does that necessarily negate the sad tale completely, or does it merely reduce its impact and value until another comparative judgment is made?  Do we go and search out a less sad tale after debunking the sadness of one’s own with a sadder tale, in order to “restore” the sadness of our own?  Or, does each sadness remain a sadness in isolation regardless of the comparative sadness to another’s?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the sadness of that medical condition becomes such and to an extent where the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, it may become necessary to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, ultimately filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Sadness aside, every tale of ending a career is a sadness in and of itself, but the key to getting beyond any such sadness rests in the next steps, not in the footsteps of one’s past or those of others, but in getting good legal advice and moving on into the next phase of one’s future.  Anything else would, whether in comparison to another’s sadness or not, be the truly sad tale of sadness defined.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer Representation OPM Disability Retirement: Perspective versus reality

One may counter that the contrast is no different than that which we encounter daily, especially in this universe of millennials and post-millennial era – of opinion versus fact, or truth versus falsehood (and now the new one, of “news” versus “fake news” or “facts” versus “alternative facts”).  But “perspective” versus “reality” has some subtle nuances that need to be explicated.  For one thing, one’s perspective may be identical to the reality one possesses a perspective upon; or, more likely, it is merely an interpretation that may differ from someone else’s.

One could, of course, argue that all of reality is merely a perspective, and this would comport with the Kantian view that our phenomenological experiences can never depict the “noumenal” universe (Kant’s verbiage) that is outside of the categorical impositions of our human make-up, and that therefore the human perspective is something that cannot be avoided, anymore than a dog’s perspective can be assumed or challenged, or a bat’s perspective (refer to Thomas Nagel on that) would be understood or comprehended by a human’s perspective.

In other words, we can never completely disown the perspective imposed by the innate structures of our own “kind”, and thus it may be an error to ever represent a contrast between “perspective” and “reality” (thus the misnomer of the title above, “Perspective versus reality”), but should always encompass and embrace a commensurate connection of “Perspective of reality” (a consonance of the two) or “Perspective and reality” (a conjoining compatibility of both).

Yet, we know that certain people interpret things differently from what we believe constitutes an accurate portrayal of “reality”.  However, so long as we stay within certain confines of accepted normative interpretations, we rarely contest or openly disagree with alternative depictions, unless it is to obtain a consensus that somehow disproves the validity of the other’s portrayal (i.e., “Yes, but John, Joe and May agree with me”, as if quantification of perspectives somehow diminishes the accuracy of another’s; as opposed to saying, “Well, Copernicus thought otherwise while the rest of the world continued to maintain a geocentric perspective of the universe” – unless, of course, you are ignoring the “rest of the world” to include China, Japan, etc.),

Yet, there are factors that have to be considered when discussing the distinction between “perspective” and “reality”, and one of them often involves medical conditions – an element of reality that often skewers perspective.  That is why, for a Federal or Postal employee who is considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the importance of relying upon accurate information, good and sound legal advice, and a straight and narrow path towards a successful outcome with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (no matter the length of time it may take these days), is important.

For, medical conditions will often alter the perspective of an individual as to the reality of one’s situation, and so it is an “outside” source (the medical condition itself) which needs a counterbalancing force (otherwise referred to as an “objective” advocate, i.e., a lawyer) in order to present an effective, objective, persuasive representative in order to “re-present” the perspective of the Federal Disability Retirement applicant.  Thus, in short, it is a perspective versus reality issue, and thus not entirely a misnomer as previously stated.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Private hells

It is a familiar refrain to note that everyone has a self-contained “private hell”; and an even greater understanding that it is well that such thoughts of other hells are both private, and for the most part, left silent without conveyance or communication.  But that is changing, in large part, because people believe that mass dissemination of information has now unleashed any unspoken decorum of dignified discretion.

We believe, now, that everyone should “tell all”; that private matters once left as remnants of shameful self-confessions should be publicized because it is healthy for the inner soul to be uncovered.  But if that were really true, wouldn’t utopia have descended upon the Western World by now?

Revolutionary experimentation is often a good thing – at least, in limited dosages of consumable quantities with tolerable levels of tenacity.  But the mass acceleration of unlimited informational discharges, as evidenced by the Internet, Smartphone usage and widespread hacking and release of information of such great quantities that we cannot even begin to sift through the volume, has resulted in less, than more.  Is it because of the consumer age of technological advancement in which we all presume that “more” equates to “better”?

Once upon a time, in the quietude of an asceticism viewed with reflective consternation, the serious young individual considered shame, hesitation and discretion of public pronouncement; now, however, we have lost faith, abandoned decorum, and relinquished sovereignty, such that we have sold our souls for a mere pittance in return.

We can “tell all” so that expiation of sins once reserved for Dante’s circle of hell could be replaced with and substituted for a therapeutic society which never quite treats effective, rarely cures and always costs.  The cost of what we have given up never returns that which we have invested, and what was once sacrosanct is now mere fodder for comedians and irreverence for late night chatter and laughter of the belly-aching kind.

Somehow, private hells no longer exist; instead, they end up being confessed on a daytime show by a host who is deemed to be a doctor, but of what kind, we are never told.  Private hells imply two consonants of behavioral conflicts:  of a secret and limited access of information (privacy) combined with a torment unimagined and unfelt by others (hell).  Does the former (privacy) exacerbate the latter (hell), such that there is therapeutic value in publicizing that which is private, which would then allow for hell to become transformed into heaven?

We tend to believe so, and this generation of modernity has begun the journey down that path without any empirical evidence to support its belief-system.  Whether it will work, or not, time will tell.  For the time being, however, the private hells which consume the islands of individuals will result in the devastation of souls and psyches, as it has throughout the history of mankind.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who endure through such private hells, suffering from a medical condition only exponentially creates a greater hell than the earthly one which most people already experience.  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is a means to an end.

The means is the administrative process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.  The “ends” will come about in order to escape that private hell, which is the slice of heavenly gratuity we are given with the birth of an unasked-for life, impeded by uncalled-for harassment, by unapproachable supervisors and managers unabashedly unconscious of the private hells they themselves have created.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Price of Admission

Private entities charge more; exclusive arenas tend to be out of reach; and it is, ultimately and as in all economic realities, determined by an admixture of supply (how many are allowed) and demand (how desirous is the goal of entrance and acceptance).  For every admittance, there is a price to pay.  Often, it is not merely the affirmative transfer of money or goods, but rather, the negative aspect of what one must “give up” in order to attain the end.  It often involves a comparative analysis, an economic evaluation of gain versus loss, and in the end, the emptiness of the latter being overtaken by the value of the former.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to awaken an awareness that one’s career may be coming to the twilight of that lengthy, successful run, it is often that “price of admission” which makes one hesitate.  For the Federal and Postal employee who must file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the question is double-sided:  the price one “has been” paying to remain as a Federal or Postal employee, as opposed to the loss of employment status, or becoming an “ex-member” of that exclusive club.

Change always portends a trauma of sorts; the medical condition and the revelation of vulnerability, mortality and progressive debilitation was in and of itself crisis of identity; but when it becomes clear that the medical condition begins to impact one’s ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, and that further changes to one’s career and livelihood must by necessity occur, then the avalanche of reality’s namesake begins to dawn.

The price of admission for one’s health, ultimately, is priceless; and that is the reality which one must face when preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire