Postal employees, there is nothing inherently wrong with an Agency offering you modified or light duty assignments. If your Agency deems you to be valuable, they may want to modify your position in order to keep you. However, the mere fact that you accept and work at a “modified” position does not mean that you are thereby precluded, down the road, from filing for disability retirement.
In fact, most “light duty” or “modified positions” are not real positions anyway, and so you may have the best of both worlds for many years: be able to work at a light-duty or modified position, and still reserve the right to file for Postal Disability Retirement sometime in the future.
The reason for this is simple: in all likelihood, your SF 50 will not change, and you will still remain in the same, original position. As such, the “light duty” position is simply a “made-up” position which has no impact upon your ability to file for disability retirement later on. This is the whole point of Ancheta v. Office of Personnel Management, 95 M.S.P.R. 343 (2003), where the Board held that a modified job in the Postal Service that does not “comprise the core functions of an existing position” is not a “position” or a “vacant position” for purposes of determining eligibility for disability retirement. The Board noted that a “modified” job in the Postal Service may include “‘subfunctions’ culled from various positions that are tailored to the employee’s specific medical restrictions,” and thus may not constitute “an identifiable position when the employee for whom the assignment was created is not assigned to those duties“. The Board thus suggested that a “modified” job in the Postal Service generally would not constitute a “position” or a “vacant position.”
Analogously, this would be true in Federal, non-postal jobs, when one is offered a “modified” or “light-duty position,” or where a Federal employee is not forced to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s official position. Further, think about this: if a Postal or Federal employee is periodically offered a “new modified” position once a year, or once every couple of years, such an action by the Agency only reinforces the argument that the position being “offered” is not truly a permanent position. Sometimes, the Agency’s own actions can be used to your advantage when filing for disability retirement.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: Accommodation and Light Duty, Clarifications of Laws or Rules, Federal Disability Judge-Made Decisions Quoted, Important Cases, Legal Updates and/or the Current Process Waiting Time, OPM Disability Actors - The Agency, U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Disability Retirement | Tagged: accommodation under OPM disability law, ad hoc federal jobs, Ancheta v. Office of Personnel Management, civil service disability, core functions of an existing federal position, CSRS disability retirement federal attorney, disability retirement, essential elements of jobs, FAA Air Traffic Controllers, Federal Aviation Administration disability retirement, federal government disability, federal medical retirement, FERS disability retirement, form 2499 for light duty in the usps, inability to perform core functions of a us government job, injured postal worker, injury compensation and light limited duty, job reassignment, legal accommodation for Postal workers, light duty and reasonable accommodation, light duty in the Postal Service, light duty jobs USPS, light-duty job offer, limited duty in the Post Office, limited duty postal service, limited jobs for light duty employees, Nexus between Medical Condition and Essential Elements, non job related injuries or illnesses, offer of modified assignment (limited duty) ps form 2499x, opm disability for federal workers in alabama, owcp accommodations, Post Office disability, Postal disability, postal employees prolonged medical absence, postal service layoffs of light duty employees, PS Form 50, resources for injured federal workers, SF50 Notification of Personnel Action, temporary duties or assignment, the "craft position" in the USPS, the existing vacant position requirement, USPS Disability, USPS disability retirement, usps limited duty jobs, usps lwop, USPS Reasonable Accommodation Committee, what to do when federal agency does not accommodate, what's permanent vacant position in opm disability law, when the usps refuses accommodation of employee | 2 Comments »