OPM Disability Retirement Law: The Village

On the political spectrum, conservatives scoffed at the idea (represented as a target of a book written by a hated political figure on the left); and liberals constantly embraced the idea, despite repeated labeling of socialism and unwanted interference from others.

The idea of the “rugged individual” as opposed to a cradle-to-cremation nanny state — the conceptual opposites are characterized by the false narrative of extreme choices, of a disjunctive which is no longer applicable, and a failure to have a productive discussion.

Most people actually hold dear the idea of a “village” — of a caring and close community.  On the other hand, most people also want the opportunity to be able to become “successful” without the burden of over-taxation and government interference.  Can both be concurrently established?  Can a balance be attained?

Federal Disability Retirement is a paradigm for that balance.  For, while it pays an annuity to the Federal retiree based upon a disability which prevents him or her from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, yet it allows for that individual to remain productive and go out into the private sector and make up to 80% of what his or her former position currently pays.  It is a system whereby “the village” allows for both — an annuity from the “nanny state”, and an allowance to remain productive and “successful”.

Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider whether or not you can qualify for entrance into the Village.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

OPM Medical Disability Retirement: The Unfairness of it All

His 1971 work, A Theory of Justice, is a “must” read in these times.  For, in the end, how can we discuss the concept of “justice” unless we first come to understand the theory of justice?

Rawls’ work requires patience and thought.  It is not a Sunday-afternoon by-the-fireside read, and some would term it an esoteric work which requires a background in philosophy.  Yes — this lawyer majored in Philosophy and went to graduate school to study Philosophy, but then decided that Kant and Hegel were too difficult to comprehend, and switched to the study of law.

To break down Rawls: The Theory of Justice is essentially a theory of fairness — how do we define it; what criteria can be applied to make it comprehensive and comprehensible; what are the terms of justice which we can all — or most of us — agree upon?

Life is unfair.  Unfairness is all around us.  Within that context of unfairness, can we still achieve a societal sense of justice?

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 continuing in his or her chosen career — “unfairness” is the central theme of life.  “Justice”, in such a case, is to be compensated for your years of service to the Federal Government.

Consult with an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and make sure that “justice” is attained by forcing OPM to approve your Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Attorney Help: The Story to Tell

We all have one.  The younger generation who are just beginning to get married and have kids of their own, are now asking of their parents to write them down for posterity’s sake.  Yes, there are history books telling of each generational challenges, but from whose perspective are they being told?

The “personal” account — of the “I” in an experience of living within a cultural period of recognizable segmentation of events unfolding — is what people yearn for.  More than ever, now, with this pandemic and the changes imposed upon our society, the individual perspective of the person whom we “personally” know, becomes all the more poignant and relevant.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and are contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, there is a story to tell — of how the medical condition impacts one’s ability and capacity to perform his or her job; the need to hide one’s inability because of the fear of ensuing harassment; the stories which never “tell” the truth, such as performance ratings and official position descriptions which fail to detail the exact nature of one’s job, etc.

Contact an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of storytelling — of one’s Statement of Disability on form SF 3112A.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Postal & Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The Social Security Requirement

There is often confusion.  In fact, some Federal and Postal employees think that the “Prerequisite requirement” of filing for Social Security Disability benefits means that you have to wait to get it approved before you can file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

The unforeseen consequences resulting from such a misunderstanding is that some Federal or Postal employees wait, and wait, and become separated, and continue to wait and allow for the 1-year rule (of having to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits within 1 year of being separated from Federal Service) to expire, then try and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  Or, others confuse the two and somehow believe that filing for Social Security Disability benefits is the same as filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Such confusion is often based upon either misinformation or misinterpretation; either way, the consequences of acting upon, or failing to act as a result of, can result in irreversible damage.

If you are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, consult with a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law before trying to maneuver through the maze of confusing requirements, prerequisites and bureaucratic language.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit earned; to obtain it, however, it must be fought for and granted, and in order to do that, representation by an experienced attorney is often the best in making your way through the legal maze of confusion.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Thinking Straight

Why “straight” as opposed to curved or in a zig-zag manner?  Who first thought that it was preferable, desirable, and even “smarter” to “think straight” as opposed to a thought process which involves a greater complexity of circuitous routes?

Is the origin based upon a metaphor or an analogy — that, because the shortest distance from Point A to Destination B must by geometric necessity involve a straight line, and therefore one may extrapolate from such a mathematical truth that the thinking-process which yields the best results is compromised of a similar metric: Of a direct and non-convoluted form of cognitive input, without the wavering lines and complicated conundrums involved in any form other than a straight line?

Yet, the process of “thinking” itself is often one that must include reflection upon multiple and endless variables: What if this happens?  What about such-and-such circumstances?  What about conditionals and unknown factors, and how will it end up if X fails to materialize or Y begins to dominate?  What about the principle contained in Occam’s Razor?  Is that the analogy that prevails upon the concept of “thinking straight”?

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 question as to whether you should consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS should, indeed, be based upon “straight thinking”, and the process of “thinking straight” should generally apply.

However, as Federal Disability Retirement Law is a complex administrative process that involves multiple facets that intersect with the Federal Agency, the Human Resource Office, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and complexities involving accommodations, potential reassignment issues, etc., the fact that a straight line may exist between the filing of a Federal Disability Retirement application and the approval or denial by OPM of that application, does not make it any simpler.

Complexity is a fact of life.  To simplify things, you should consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law in order to make sure that “straight thinking” is achieved by thinking straight, and that should come from advice and counsel which gives you the right direction on how to get from Point A to Destination B.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Down a Rabbit Hole

The phrase originates from the novel by Charles Dodgson (under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll) entitled, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, shortened to “Alice in Wonderland”, and has come to take on a wider meaning — embracing any experience where one unexpectedly encounters a surreal, bizarre universe or phenomena.

The phrase is an interesting one — of somehow entering a different kind of reality where a parallel universe exists.  The rabbit holes of real life are more mundane — of a nest found in one’s back yard where young bunnies huddle together in fear of being discovered, and where hope of survival depends upon people walking by oblivious to the shelter and dogs failing to sniff out the hideouts.

We all walk through life hoping that we can avoid falling down a rabbit hole, and many of us deliberately avoid areas that may be pocked full of them, like so many potholes in roads and bridges that have been left in disrepair.

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 necessity of filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be file through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, may be considered tantamount to falling down into a Rabbit Hole.

OPM is a large bureaucracy, complex in its administrative procedures and processes, and the entire journey of preparing, formulating, filing and maneuvering through the Federal Disability Retirement laws, procedures and regulatory morass can be somewhat likened to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — only, the reality of it is that the surreal universe of the bizarre must meet the universe of necessity, and while the child who reads about Alice can delight in its wonderful tales and adventures, the Federal or Postal worker must live within the reality of a medical condition that remains forever.

That is why, in both cases, falling down into a rabbit hole will often need some expert guidance — like consulting with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law so that the rabbit hole one falls into enhances the chances that the bizarre will ultimately lead to a successful endeavor out of the maze of OPM’s complex processes.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney Representation for OPM Disability Retirement: Thinking

What constitutes it?  What is the evidence that it was engaged in?  When a person is charged with “premeditation” in the perpetration of a crime, and therefore ascription of full responsibility is used to convict and assign a greater length of incarceration, what methodological intricacies are involved?

Take the following hypothetical:  A man walks into a candy store and grabs a Snicker’s Bar, and runs out of the store without paying for it.  He is nabbed.  At the trial of the matter, the prosecutor gives the following summation to the judge:  “Your honor, this man clearly thought about it.  He entered the store, looked about, and deliberately took the Snicker’s Bar and ran out without paying, knowing that he did not pay it — otherwise, why would be have run?  Indeed, when the police caught him, he yelled, “I was hungry!”  That statement alone shows that the man knew he had not paid for it, for it was an admission of a motive, and thus, it is a clear indication that he thought about stealing it, walked into the store and with criminal intent stole the candy bar.  Only the death penalty would be appropriate for one with such premeditative intent, as he is a danger to society!”

Now, contrast this with the following:  The Candy Store’s automatic door opens, and an animal — a neighborhood dog — saunters in, sniffs about, and no one really notices.  The dog grabs a Snicker’s Bar, gobbles it.  Passersby watch.  The store’s owner notices, laughs, shoos the dog out the door.  Why do we not think that the dog “thought” about it?  Why is “thinking” ascribed to the human being, but not to the animal?  What is it about the actions of the two species that differentiates them?  Does the mere fact that we able able to speak, formulate words and convey thoughts, whether pre-or-post action confirm that any extent of reflective processes occurred?  Is the process of “thinking” always productive — i.e., leads to actions that are fruitful, or is much of it simply an insular activity that results in no great consequence?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are “thinking” about filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the key to “thinking” about it is to take the next step and act upon the thought.  People often think that thinking is a productive activity, so long as it remains active and continuous.  But thought can also negate and prevent, and too much thinking, or not enough, can often become an obstacle to the necessary next step.

In order to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the key to productive thinking is not merely to engage in it as an insular, solitary activity, but to have the consultation and advice of an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement, lest merely thinking about it leads to an unthoughtful act that leads one to believe that the very thinking itself was thoughtless.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS/CSRS Disability Retirement: Of tripe, tropes and trickling trivialities

One rarely thinks in terms of multiple stomachs, but certainly cows have them; but when we consider the tripe of language, we project only the inherent foolishness of man.  Of tropes, we may envision a higher calling; though, of course, figurative speech requires greater imagination and creativity, and the dullness of many falls back naturally into either the first or second stomachs of the bovine kind, and not merely to be digested and emitted through the natural canals of intestinal tracts, but by metaphorical heights of human depravity.  Then, of course, there are trivialities, and most of the drip-drip-drip sort, and never in voluminous waves of profundities, but merely superficial utterances of inane particles.

Much of everyday phenomena falls into one of the three categories; and of the first, it allows for wiggle-room into a fourth because of the dual definitions presented.  Indeed, there is great similarity between tripe and truth.  In actuality, farmers will tell us that the cow has only one stomach, but with four distinctive compartments, identified as the Rumen, the Reticulum, the Omasum and the Abomasum.  It is the last of the four which actually digests the food, but the first three allow for the complex mixing of saliva and digestive enzymes, the processing and breaking down of the products of the earth taken in – sort of like an organic factory.

That is the awe of it all, isn’t it –and the irony; for, we see the bovine creature, stoic with its forlorn eyes, standing in its own manure in order to be treated as an assembly-line receptacle in order to produce products to be shipped across the country, and contained within its multiple compartments comprises a reflection of the type of efficiencies which we attempt to mirror and copy.  And then, on top of it all, we slaughter and tear out the first two or three in order to create delicacies for those who prefer the delectable entrees of chefs known to make masterpieces out of common fodder.  Of tropes, of course, we categorize as thoughtful reproaches less evident because of their figurative requirements; but of trickling trivialities, we have to endure because much of society has become entrapped by the inane details of personal lives and stardom’s prurient interests.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are 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 beckoning call must come neither from tripe, nor tropes, nor even from trickling trivialities.

For, in the end, the need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits comes about precisely because the seriousness of the medical condition compels one to view other problems as mere trickling of trivialities; that the suffering, pain and anxiety created by the medical condition is no longer a figurative existence like the tropes of literature; and with great certainty, we come to recognize that the digestive processes of a tripe cannot cure the reflective need to change the produce of a world uncaring, even if it is sifted through the complex compartments of a bovine creature, leaving aside the inane foolishness of the world’s loss of character in a life still valued for future engagement.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

The 1956 version of the film (the only one worth watching) was in black & white, and created a sensation among French Existentialists for the greatest horror committed upon a human being:  to strip one of all human emotion, and transform the person into a robotic automaton of sorts.

Camus’ novel, The Stranger, reveals a similar theme through the titular character, Meursault, where the absurdity of life, the indifference of humanity, all serve to compel him to commit a murder without reason or rationale, in a universe without emotion — until the very end when, faced with the certainty of the guillotine, he responds with rage at a chaplain who wants him to atone for his sins.

Life itself can be the slow drip-drip-drip of stripping one of emotions, somewhat like spores which fall and turn into seed pods, and slowly attaches, drains, and diminishes the uniqueness of the individual; or like the greater absurdity of performing apparently meaningless tasks, where a sense of separateness and division occurs as a chasm between worth and work, as when Sisyphus rolls the boulder up the hill, only to see it slither back down the other side.

Medical conditions sometimes awaken us from the slumber of absurdity.  It is in and of itself an anomaly of sorts, to have to face the mortality and fragility of one’s life, thereby unraveling thoughts of worthiness in a world devoid of care, empathy or concern.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, for the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker, is a step taken to climb out of that chasm or void of dissipating meaningfulness.  For, when a medical condition begins to impact one’s capacity and ability to continue bringing meaning and purposefulness to a job, within a context of an agency which shows indifference and outright animosity, it is time to escape the alien pods and devise an escape route from the invasion of the body snatchers.

It is like Sartre’s quip that Hell “is other people” — of that moment when a person looks through a keyhole and views another as a mere object, then senses someone else behind, and realizes that you were being watched watching others as an object, only to be considered as an object as well.  Similarly, when a Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service begins to treat the Federal or Postal employee as a fungible object of nominal worth, it is time to seek and monetize one’s worth at another location, another context, a different venue.

Medical conditions demean and diminish in multiple ways:  one’s own consciousness recognizes the devaluation of being “less than whole”; others begin to approach and treat with trepidation; and Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service fail to accommodate according to the laws already in place.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is a means to an end.  The “means” requires an affirmative step by the Federal or Postal employee to traverse from the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service by beginning the preparation and formulation for filing of an OPM Disability Retirement application; the “exit” is the concerted effort to run afar from those spores from heaven, as the body snatchers who drain life and vitality through the keyhole of sanity where absurdity and meaning clash in a titanic battle for human worth.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Stages

Life brings about natural “stages” — paralleling certain age requirements, with subsets and parenthetical footnotes as to each.  As the queried riddle posed by the Sphinx (“What has four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, three legs in the evening, and no legs at night?”) brings about clarity of identity, so the stages of life provide a glimpse into the inherent complexity of man’s psyche.

It is, in part, an inevitability; but to say that all such epochs of behavioral vicissitudes are pre-determined or otherwise inevitable, is to ignore man’s free will, and the capacity to adapt, change and recognize the surrounding environment and realign accordingly. Do artificial stages reflect or parallel man’s natural stages?  One wonders.  For, as man is the creator and inventor of such artifices, do we recognize the inevitable parallelism between that which we mold, and from which we conform the substratum of life?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Service 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 administrative process identified as “Federal Disability Retirement” presents itself in multiple potential stages, also.

There is the initial application stage; then, if it is denied by OPM, one has the second Stage to have it “Reconsidered” (and thus the name, the “Reconsideration Stage”); if denied a second time by OPM, then one can appeal the Federal Disability Retirement case to the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board; and further, if the Administrative Judge at the MSPB rules against the Federal or Postal employee in a Federal Disability Retirement case, one has the further appellate right to file a Petition for Full Review, then an additional appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, or to bypass the Petition for Full Review and go directly to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Somewhat like the Riddle of the Sphinx, there are normally 4 (sometimes 5) stages to most administrative processes, and Federal Disability Retirement is no different.  The difference is found in the fact that, unlike those complex stages in natural life, we have the capacity and opportunity in engaging the artificial stages presented, to add, make corrections, and supplement the mistakes made previously.  But that we could do more of that in our natural lives!

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire