Medical Retirement Benefits for US Government Employees: Termination

Termination for the Federal or Postal employee should generate an administrative personnel action reflected in an SF 50 or PS Form 50, showing the date of the action, the nature of the issuance and the reason for the administrative process which is initiated and culminated.  Without it, technically no such action occurred.  However, there are cases where such a form has not been produced.

Further, such a personnel initiation is rarely issued in a vacuum; for a Federal employee to be terminated, there are certain procedural hurdles which are normally provided — an issuance first of a proposed termination, and the basis for such a personnel action, and one to which the addressee has a right to respond to within a specified period of days or weeks.  Thereafter, consideration must be given by the Agency in the response, whether verbal, written or both, given by the Federal or Postal employee.

Subsequently, when a termination is effectuated, an SF 50 or a PS Form 50 will be generated.  From that date of termination, the Federal or Postal employee has up to one year to file for disability benefits.

If such filing occurs after 31 days of the official termination date, then the application for Federal Disability Retirement benefits must be submitted directly to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in Boyers, PA.

If prior to 31 days, it can be processed through one’s former agency — although, such a filing should be carefully monitored, as one’s former agency may not process it with any urgency, and in the event that it is not forwarded to OPM within the other 11 months and some-odd days left, there will be a question as to whether it was timely filed at all.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal and Postal Disability Retirement: Why Agencies Act

I am often asked why the Federal Agency will go out of their way to remove an individual based upon every conceivable reason other than the true and underlying reason:  One’s medical inability to perform the essential elements of one’s job.  Despite submitting medical reports; despite a Supervisor’s knowledge of the daily pain and suffering of an employee; despite it all, the Agency will often focus upon the employee’s conduct or lack of work production, or upon the number of absences; then place the employee on a Personal Improvement Plan (PIP) ; refuse to grant LWOP; then propose to terminate the individual based upon all of the myriad actions they have taken.  

When the query arises as to why the Agency will not just propose the removal based upon his or her medical inability to perform the job, the answer is often:  We are not a medical facility and we cannot make that determination.  But that is normally not the underlying, driving reason.  It is more often than not because agencies have a single-track mind to act in a self-determined manner.  Ultimately, however, when one files for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, while a removal based upon one’s “medical inability to perform one’s job” is the most “helpful”, other forms of removals can actually enhance the Federal Disability Retirement application, by focusing upon the fact that the negative performance indicators can only be explained by the parallel medical conditions which were clearly impacting the employee.  Sometimes, that takes a little more effort — such effort which the Agency failed or refused to engage in.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Federal and USPS Workers: The "Lost Cause" Case

Often, an approval for a Federal Disability Retirement case will come in the mail, and the client will state, “I never thought I would see it approved.”  It is the job of an attorney who specializes in any area of law, to win the case.  In representing Federal and Postal employees to obtain Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, the ultimate “win” is to get the approval from the Office of Personnel Management. 

Some cases are harder to get approved than others; then, there are the “Lost Cause” cases — ones which, for one reason or another, seem to encounter greater obstacles:  from agencies which attempt to undermine the Federal Disability Retirement application, to adverse termination proceedings prior to the filing of a Federal Disability Retirement application; to insufficient medical documentation; and multiple other reasons, there are cases which appear to be lost causes.  Yet, so long as there is another stage of appeal, and so long as there is sufficient merit to a case, one should never give up.  Lost causes are especially triumphant moments for the attorney representing a disabled Federal employee.  For an OPM Disability Retirement case, it is especially sweet to obtain that letter of approval from the Office of Personnel Management, for that case which the client himself/herself believed as a “lost cause”.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire