FERS Disability Retirement: Knowledge & Application

It is assumed in the West that knowledge, in and of itself, is a valuable thing.  And in this country, periods of pragmatism overtake that viewpoint, but always seem to revert back — otherwise, how else would we persuade children to spend countless hours sitting in a classroom, year after year?

As “making a living” has become the primary focus of society in general, there is an ever-pervasive tension between knowledge for its own sake as opposed to knowledge that is “useful” (translation: the “know-how” to make a living).  This is a tension that every society must grapple with — of becoming educated as an end in itself or as a means to a different end.

Few believe that there is a downside to having a good education, but a well-educated populace that lives in poverty cannot for long sustain its justification for perpetuating inapplicable knowledge.  Society must always maintain a balance between theoretical knowledge and applied knowledge.

Law is a discipline which straddles the fence between the theoretical and the practical, inasmuch as it engages in conceptual/intellectual issues, but concurrently, must be able to be applied in the everyday lives of people.  For example, in domestic relations law, there are overarching conceptual principles focusing upon what constitutes “the best interests of a child” in a custody battle, but in the end, the practical application of determining a workable visitation schedule must be hammered out between the parties involved.

Similarly, in Criminal law, while a society may adopt a conceptual apparatus as to whether “reform” is the goal or “punishment” is the justifying foundation for a lengthy incarceration imposed, nevertheless, in either case, society must consider the practical issue of protecting its citizens from further harm which may predictably be committed by the party found guilty.

In a similar fashion, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal employees who file for Federal or Postal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under the FERS system, knowing the Law and cases governing Federal Disability Retirement is essential in engaging the bureaucratic process, precisely because Federal Disability Retirement benefits is not merely about the medical condition in and of itself, but involves a complex consortium of issues in relation to the job one is positioned in, whether the Agency can accommodate an individual’s medical disabilities as well as what constitutes a legally-viable accommodation, as well as a whole host of other similar issues.

Here, knowledge precedes application, and having a ‘working’ knowledge of the laws governing Federal Disability Retirement in order to apply it at each stage of the administrative process is a necessary prerequisite before considering even applying for the benefit.  Yes, there are rare cases in which the medical disability is so severe and clear-cur that the medical documentation is and should be sufficient unto itself; but that is a rare case indeed.

As such, at whatever stage of the process one finds oneself in the Federal Disability Retirement bureaucracy, you may want to consult with an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes exclusively in Federal Disability Retirement law in order to have not only the knowledge but the practical application of proceeding against the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in fighting for your FERS Disability Retirement benefits.

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.

 

Postal and Federal Disability Retirement: Persuasion

Persuasion is a funny animal; when it is effective, success is determined by the reversal of an opponent’s viewpoint, but if it is ineffective, mere silence ensues, and unless prompted by subsequent queries, one never knows how close one came to persuading another and what further evidence or argumentation may have pushed the other side over the edge.

Then, of course, there is always the question of whether the opposing party is open to persuasion or not, and what are the conditions within which it may occur.  The danger lies especially when an organization or bureaucracy has become so powerful or autocratic that it need not ever be persuaded because there are no consequences to being left unpersuaded.

The presence of outside safeguards is often necessary for persuasion to have its salutary effect, as a more obscure sense of “fair play” is often not enough to make a difference.  All of this, of course, doesn’t even touch upon the substantive content of what constitutes a persuasive argument, as context is often just as important as content (anyone who has been married will immediately understand the truth of this statement).

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have submitted a FERS Medical Retirement claim with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (also known for its acronym “OPM”) and have received an initial denial and must now respond to the denial at the Reconsideration Stage of the Process, “persuasiveness” becomes the battle cry in preparing the proper response.

OPM has all the time in the world in preparing its denial and needs little basis in its persuasive content.  They merely need to have some minimal basis of reasons to issue a denial.  On the other hand, the denied Federal or Postal applicant has (A) a very short timeframe in responding and (B) must advance a heavy burden of proof in order to overcome the denial, despite the often scatter-brained content of an OPM Denial.

Furthermore, in preparing a reconsideration Response, one should always keep in mind that the targeted audience is not just OPM, but the next stage in the event that OPM remains unpersuaded — that of the Admin Judge at the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).  That is why any response to an OPM Initial Denial should include a recitation of the relevant case laws discussing why your particular case meets the legal criteria for an approval.

As with spousal arguments and discussions around the Holiday dinner table, context matters as much as context when trying to persuade the other side.  And also in preparing a persuasive response, you may want to consider consulting with a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer specializing exclusively in FERS Medical Retirement Law.

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.

 

OPM Medical Retirement Under FERS: Life’s Distraction

Many are needed; if not for sanity’s sake, then merely to allow a person to focus upon something else, before re-focusing upon the more primary tasks at hand.

Life’s distractions are normally healthy endeavors — of hobbies engaged, the entertainment and leisure to be enjoyed, of the pleasures of relationships, kids, family, vacations and weekend warrior engagements.  A pick-up game of basketball; a summer league of regularity; a child’s wish for a father’s overly-exuberant cheering; or even of a quiet evening spent engrossed in life’s distractions.

There are, as well, negative distractions — of problems to be solved; of aging parents and their chronic needs; or of a medical condition becoming more than a distraction, where it becomes the primary focus of impending impediments.

In general, life’s distractions are meant to be just that — something which takes away, for a period of time, in order to allow for a person to get back to life’s primary endeavors.  But when that distraction itself becomes the focus of life’s primary endeavor — as when, for a Federal or Postal worker whose medical condition begin to prevent one’s ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job — then it loses its status as a mere distraction, and must be attended to in some direct fashion.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to contemplate initiating the process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the FERS system, contact a Federal Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and let not life’s distractions become the mainstay of the many problems we must face on a daily basis.

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.

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Words and Actions

Can empathy have meaning without acting when the necessity arises?  Can abstract affection without the inclusion of real people trigger a positive result, or does it leave a vacuum of insensitivity?

In modernity, it appears that words alone constitute action enough, so that in the political sphere, if one speaks the “right” words, then nothing further is required.  Thus, to be in favor of certain political positions is enough to be noble and lauded.

But in real life, if help is actually needed, can words of empathy be enough?  To merely speak the proper words — “I feel bad for him,” or, “I truly feel sorry for her circumstances” or perhaps to even shed some real tears; but without rendering physical or material assistance, does the lack of actions following upon words reveal either insincerity or, even worse, a perversity of emptiness in one’s vacuous soul?  Does not the test of sincerity require completion by action?

On a macro level, can a society claim to be a moral nation through flowery speeches, while allowing its citizens to suffer great iniquities?  To that end, the benefit of Federal OPM Disability Retirement is reflective of a government which not only expresses words of concern for its workforce but moreover, combines those words with the action of providing the benefit of Federal Disability Retirement for the eventuality of suffering from a disabling injury or illness which often results in devastating consequences.

Words and Actions.  Each complements the other and the combination is like the clasping of two hands — ineffective when separate and apart, but when used in tandem, can evince a practical strength beyond the coordinated combination of both together.

Contact a FERS Disability Retirement Lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law for Federal and Postal employees, and begin to actually act upon preparing, formulating, and filing an effective Federal/Postal Disability Retirement application under the FERS system, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

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

 

FERS Medical Retirement: The World of Yesterday

Yesterday was the day before the medical condition made its introduction; the day prior to having to acknowledge its existence, its impacts or its chronic appearance; the day just when complaining about life’s missteps and unfairness seems now so trivial and far off the mark of justified sequences; and it is the day now in the near past, yet so distant in significance or of memories retained of better times when laughter would echo with sincere, heartfelt exuberance until today came along with the baggage of the world of yesterday.

Yesterday is the time we romanticized, of better times, more upstanding people seemed to populate the earth, and though there were still crimes committed, hearts broken and promises left unkept, nevertheless we insist that the world of yesterday was better than today, and tomorrow, bleaker yet except in small puddles of hopeful naïveté left abandoned in the palms of begging children outstretched to ask for alms of forgiveness never to be recognized except in shuttered side streets where mud, recklessness and poverty-stricken families with eyes staring vacantly from gaunt looks remain in silent alcoves of painful remorses.

The World of Yesterday is what we remember, that which we long for, and to which we direct our conversations, thus averting our eyes away from the reality of today, the ugliness of tomorrow and the hopelessness of the day after.  It is what makes us pause, justifies our procrastination and makes pudding out of venerated food items that are left on the shelves to rot and decay.

For Federal Gov. employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition now prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the World of Yesterday was when the chronic medical condition could be tolerated, hidden, ignored or “dealt with” — but we must always live in the world of today in order to prepare for the world of many tomorrows, and to do so, preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), whether the Federal employee or Postal Service worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, becomes a necessity, lest the World of Yesterday consumes the World of Today and subverts the many worlds of all the tomorrows which are yet to come.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Attorney exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their FERS Medical Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Zigzagging Life

Every life has a pattern.  Whether of a logical progression; a life based upon personal failures resulting from passions unresolved; one of pure selfish pursuits; another of enmity, always with a chip on one’s shoulder; or of a zigzagging life, always traversing across wide expanses of empty plateaus, never touching the same field twice.

It is like the pattern one achieves in playing the Game of Go — that Chinese conundrum of a game, adopted and perfected by the Japanese, where the pattern of white against black in dominating the territory constrained by the squares on a board — and yes, when the entire board is filled, the distinctive patterns created by the white oval pieces in contrast to the black oval pieces, reveals the pattern of a person’s life.

You can tell — read — the frustrations, passions, feelings, thoughts, emotions and even psychosis, of the players based upon the patterns created.  The one who hugs the edges; the other, attempting to dominate the middle; both, creating stoppages and attempting to subvert the two “eyes” of every pattern in order to prevent the unconquerable string of oval stones on the intersecting lines of a Go Board.

The Zigzagging Life is the one most of us lead — without logic; without purpose; but just to survive for another day, to place one more stone upon an in invisible line of intersecting — but never encountering — life of emptiness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, and who believe that his or her life in the Federal Government has come to a crossroads where the intersection of medical condition and inability to continue in the career of his or her choice in the Federal Government, you may want to contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, where the Zigzagging Life of trying to continue while knowing that your illness or disability will no longer allow you to keep going, and you have come to a point where you are considering resigning and just walking away — Don’t.

Instead, consider what a FERS Disability Retirement benefit can do for your life.

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.

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Is It Enough?

That is always the question, isn’t it?  Especially, these days, when there are so many options, so many avenues, so many ways to get off of the proverbial path and become a wayward nonconformist.

Is love enough to last a lifetime?  Is a sense of obligation enough to be committed for the agreed-upon enmeshment?  Is religious fervor enough to maintain one’s faith even in the face of secularism’s hedonistic pull?  Is pleasure enough to sustain one’s sense of wanting to exist?  Is duty enough to compel a soldier to sacrifice for his country?  Is life enough to sustain?

That was the ultimate question for French existentialism, especially as delineated in Camus’ set of essays, beginning with the Myth of Sisyphus.  What is “enough”?  How can it be quantified?  Underlying it all, isn’t the ultimate question beyond whether something is “enough”, actually an irrelevant question?

For, as Aristotle would put it (and in this Post-Factual World, where Aristotle and Plato are no longer read, and thus, no longer relevant), we must go back to the basics, to the “foundational principles” underlying our belief systems: What is meaningful in our lives?

When there is a void in meaningfulness, hedonism fills that emptiness.  That is why teenagers turn to drugs; that is why adults succumb to alcohol; and that is why, when ISIS came into existence, and when the war in Ukraine began, thousands of Americans flocked to join in the “cause” — because, when the void of meaninglessness pervades, people jump to join anything and everything which becomes the cult of relevance.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition no longer allows you to continue in that career of choice — the work which gave “meaning” to your life — it is important to recognize that, indeed, there is “life after a Federal career”.  Likely, you may be somewhat saddened by the fact that your Federal or Postal career is over.  However, beyond your career, there is no meaning to life without your health.

And yes, there actually is “life after getting a Federal Disability Retirement” — and there abounds countless testimonials which attest to the fact that it is, indeed, “enough” to get a FERS Disability Retirement annuity, focus upon your health, then go into some other line of work in the private or state sector.

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.

 

Federal Medical Retirement under FERS: Vicious Circularity

There is a direct correlation between the growing mental health crisis and the increasingly focused reliance upon cognitive insularity — where engagement with “the world” is not between the subjective (our own thoughts, senses, moods, etc.) and the objective (the world “out there” in what Kant deemed unknowable, as encountered in the noumenal — not the phenomenal — universe), but rather, between the subjective and the perceptual apparatus of the meta-universe.

Whether at work or play, everyone, everywhere, at most times, is engaged on the computer, Smart Phone, etc.  A growing consensus says that a healthy mind requires engagement with the objective world for some period of time each day — of taking a walk and leaving your Smart Phone behind; of making some connection beyond the vicious circularity of your own thoughts within the meta-universe of a virtual reality.

The corporate giants clearly have a monetary self-interest in having the world become insular; for, the greater use of the electronic devices results in greater profits and increased dependency.  No one asked the common man whether we wanted a world made up of this vicious circularity, but here we are.

With the growing mental health crisis, more Federal and Postal workers need to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.  Fortunately, the MSPB and the Federal Courts of Appeals have recognized that there is no stigma to be placed on psychiatric medical disabilities.

Psychiatric conditions are just as valid a basis in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the FERS benefits system, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, as physical, non-psychiatric conditions.

As for the vicious circularity magnifying our mental health crisis?  That is for Psychiatrists and Therapists to deal with; but in the meantime, take their simple advice: Leave the Smart Phone and the Computer behind, and take your dog out for a walk.

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 Law: The MSPB and Consistency of Argumentation

Is it even important, anymore?  Lawyers, of course, are notorious for making alternate arguments, presenting to a Judge or a Jury different explanations, alternative legal theories and justifications, often within the span of a single sentence, and even sometimes contradicting each other.

It is only when the contradiction occurs within the confines of a single theory that the Judge may say, “Wait, counsel — hoooooold on there!  Are you trying to argue X and Not-X at the same time?”  The answer by the clever lawyer: “No, your honor, I am merely pointing out that X could be, and Not-X is also credible, leaving my client to appear not only as an innocent bystander but, moreover, a not-guilty one as well!”

In some forums, that may hold; but in a Federal Disability Retirement case, the only way that inconsistency of argumentation works is when an OPM Medical Specialist says so.  OPM denies cases systematically without any regard to consistency of argumentation.  This is because there is no accountability at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  They can review a case, deny it, and it is out of the hands of the Medical Specialist who made the decision.

Then, at the Reconsideration Stage, a completely different Medical Specialist will make a brand new determination, based upon his or her own perspective and viewpoint, and it need not have any consistency of argumentation with the previous decision.

Fortunately, however, when it goes before an Administrative Judge at the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, Consistency of Argumentation becomes an important factor.  For, that is one of the primary basis upon which an MSPB Federal Disability Retirement case is lost — when consistency of argumentation based upon the evidence becomes questionable.

Inconsistency is the downfall of most cases at the MSPB; consistency — even with less than adequate evidence of a compelling nature — will often overcome much, and win the case.  The one thing that Administrative Law Judges at the MSPB dislike above all else: Inconsistency in testimony, Inconsistency in evidence, and Inconsistency in the closing argument of an attorney.

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.

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Sound of Fury

It is the partial title of Faulkner’s classic, of course — The Sound and the Fury — of the emptiness of shadows, or attempting to regain what once was, of reputation and dignity.

Much of life today is filled with the sound of fury — for what; about what; for what reason, is anyone’s guess.  But there is fury all around — against the government; against people who have opposite viewpoints; against life itself.  Whatever the sound of fury sounds like, we can hear it on talk radio, in political speeches, in Twitter and other Social Media outlets.

There are sounds, and then there is fury, and the two are different, which is why Faulkner’s title tells the full story, whereas in today’s circus of unhappy lives, the “half story” of the sound of fury is so much more apt.  For, so much of the furor and the sound of fury is about nothingness, but as passion sells and the greater sound of fury persuades and fills the void where reason and rationality once prevailed, so the sound of fury is what dominates modernity.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who voice the sound of fury against the unfairness of life when a medical condition begins to impact your career, remember that Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the FERS system is available as an option to merely voicing the sound of fury.  It is a benefit which you earned when you became a Federal employee and earned a minimum of 18 months of Federal Service.

Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of initiating an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS — not necessarily with any sound of fury, however.

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.