In filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS, one must always be aware of the distinction between the two — opinions and power — and apply it with that awareness in filing an application for Federal Disability Retirement to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
There will be multiple opinions involved in any Federal Disability Retirement packet — the opinion of the medical doctor who is treating the applicant; the opinion of the applicant as to one’s ability or inability to perform some, which or all of the essential elements of one’s job; the opinion of the Supervisor or someone at the Agency on multiple issues, rendered in the Supervisor’s Statement and the Agency’s Certification for Reassignment and Accommodation; and the “opinion” handed out by the Office of Personnel Management as to whether all of the compendium of opinions, collectively gathered to present the evidence for approval in a Federal Disability Retirement application, constitute sufficient evidence such that it meets the preponderance of the evidence in proving one’s case. It is thus helpful to understand that all of these identifiable propositions are all “opinions”.
The one distinction, however, is that the opinion of the Office of Personnel Management carries with it the power of approval or disapproval, and so one may designate it as carrying more “weight” because it contains an inherent authority which all other opinions lack — that of the power to say yea or nay. But remember that such power, fortunately, is not absolute, nor necessarily arbitrary and capricious, and there is ultimately an appeal process to have such raw power reviewed for viability and sufficiency. That is why the validity and force of the “other” opinions is important to maintain — the medical opinion and the opinion of the Applicant — so that when it is reviewed by an Administrative Judge, the integrity of a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS may be properly adjudicated.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
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Federal Disability Retirement: Formulating an Effective SF 3112A
The “heart of it all” is… The medical report will provide the substantive basis; a supervisor’s statement may or may not be helpful or useful at all; legal arguments will certainly place the viability of the application for Federal Disability Retirement into its proper context and arguments which touch upon the legal basis will inevitably have their weight, impact and effect upon whether one has met by a preponderance of the evidence the legal criteria required to be eligible and entitled. All of that aside, the SF 3112A — the Applicant’s Statement of Disability — is where the heart of the matter resides in preparing, formulating, and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS.
If a Federal or Postal employee is unsure of what to state, how to state it, or how much to reveal and state, that becomes a problem. For, ultimately, the proper balance must be stricken — between that which is relevant as opposed to superfluous; between that which is substantive as opposed to self-defeating; and between that which is informational, as opposed to compelling. Formulation takes thought and reflection. Yes, the SF 3112A — the Applicant’s Statement of Disability — is the heart of it all.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: OPM Disability Application - SF 3112A Applicant's Statement of Disability for CSRS and FERS | Tagged: an essential tip for 3112a filling: keep in mind the requirements, attorney's legal assistance during the 3112a filling out, beware of the applicant's statement of disability, federal disability law and legal argumentation, fers disability application supervisor comments, finding the right balance in the opm disability applicant's statements, focusing on the narrative of the opm disability applicant, formulating a fers disability claims takes a big deal of effort and dedication, heart and soul of a federal employee disability application, How to write a SF 3112A Applicant's Statement of Disability, importance of using legal argumentation in your fers disability claim, legal arguments in the federal disability application, maintaining a fine balance in your statements in the applicant's statements, medical report from treating physicians for fers disability claim, medical reports in the OPM disability retirement application, narrative medical reports used in the federal disability retirement process, objectivity and legal arguments in a fers disability claim, opm disability statements made by applicant, postal supervisors and managers, SF 3112A Applicant's Statement of Disability for CSRS, SF 3112A Applicant's Statement of Disability for FERS, soundness of legal arguments used in administrative law, striving for a fair balance in sf 3112a the applicant's statements, studying your opm claim and using appropriate legal arguments, telling the medical story in the applicant's statement of disability, the applicant's control of the opm disability application and process, the applicant's medical narrative report, the best sample of a 3112a -- on that meets the basic requirements of eligibility, the limited importance of the supervisor's statements in the opm disability process, the limited power of a supervisor in the fers disability retirement process, the most important form in the federal disability retirement package: sf 3112a, the opm disability retirement applicant's errors, the supervisor's opinions during the federal disability process, tips for unrepresented opm disability applicants, what the applicant can control in the fers disability package, why the applicant's statements is such an important document in a fers disability claim | Leave a comment »