FERS Disability: Enhancing the Chances for Success

Every missed opportunity lessens the chances for a successful outcome, and when you are dealing with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under the FERS system, and specifically when attempting to obtain a Federal Disability Retirement from them, you must take every opportunity to reinforce and take advantage of each chance given.

At every turn when OPM requests further information, such communication provides an opportunity to cite a legal precedent in characterizing the strength of your position or to reiterate the legal basis as to why your case merits further consideration beyond the “run of the mill” cases.

Can you argue the Bruner Presumption even if you have not been separated from Federal Service?  Can you make an argument by analogy?  Can you argue the “inconsistency” argument as propounded in Henderson v, OPM, or the 4-part test in Bracey?

By making such arguments at every opportunity presented, you enhance your chances for successfully being approved for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  For, in the end, all roads in a Federal Disability Retirement case lead to an appeal with an Administrative Judge at the U.S, Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), and OPM is fully aware of this plain fact.

Because OPM knows that successive denials of a FERS Disability Retirement case will ultimately lead to an appeal to the MSPB, citing relevant case laws at every opportunity presented will enhance your chance for success.

Contact a disability lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin to enhance your chances for success in obtaining an approval for your FERS Disability Retirement application.

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 Retirement Benefits: Moving Forward

Is there any other way; another direction; somewhere else?

Other societies, civilizations and cultures are satisfied with remaining static — of old ways, established villages, the way things “have always been done”.  Not here in the U.S.  Here, everything must be new and scintillating; whatever are the newest trends, we must always embrace and accept; whoever represent the most recent form of “newness” is the one considered “in”, etc.

Cast out the old; and of those left behind? — Well, too bad for them.  The entire concept of how we treat “the least” among us — whether of the old, the infirm, the disabled whether children or grownups — has never quite caught on.  Perhaps it is because we have no conscience, let alone consciousness of duty or obligation.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, “moving forward” is the only option left.  For, otherwise, you will be left behind to face the inevitable consequences which will only further make circumstances worse: Greater inability to do your job; manifestation of deficiency in your performance or attendance; placement on a Performance Improvement Plan (otherwise known by the acronym, “PIP”); further deterioration to your health, etc.

But what does “moving forward” mean?  What does it entail?

Consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  It is essentially taking an early retirement, but with greater, enhanced benefits.  It is the best option in a world where moving forward is the only way out, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is, indeed, the best way forward in a world where moving forward is the only option left.

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 Retirement Application: Denials

They come in various forms; of self-denials representing a sacrifice in order to allow loved ones to reap the benefits; of denials meant to avoid the ugliness of reality; or of denials which prevent a person from entering a premises, advancing in a career or progressing in an endeavor.  Of whatever form or content, they leave the denied applicant a sense of disappointment, a temporary state of suspension and often a profound feeling of uncertainty.

Does one “give up” when a denial occurs?  Or, does one find an alternate route, a way to rebut and with a reenergized sense of purpose?

To be denied is to be defeated for a time; to be defeated is to give up entirely; but to avoid the finality of defeat, one must regroup and counterattack, in whatever form that may take.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and who have been forced to file for FERS Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management by necessity of an unwanted medical condition — a denial from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is not the proverbial “end of the road”.  Rather, it is simply the beginning of the fight.  Who said that life’s pathways are easy?

Although OPM often makes it sound “as if” you never stood a chance, that your case was flawed to begin with or that there was never any validity to the claims you have made, that is simply their opinion on the matter.  What matters is whether your case has merit, and the merit of a case depends upon the laws governing FERS Disability Retirement Law.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and don’t let a denial automatically lead to a defeat; for, there is a reason why Federal Disability Retirement allows for various stages of appeals — precisely because a denial by OPM is not the end of the matter, but merely a beginning to the fight which must ensue.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Representation: The pecking order

Watching birds fly and cavort around a bird-feeder, one realizes that the term as applied to human conduct is not too far from the reality of the natural order of things.  There is, indeed, a “pecking order” in the world of birds and fowls aflight; it has to do with size, aggression, quickness and desire to survive. In other words, how birds behave is not too far afield from the way in which humans interact.

As children being thrown together in various institutions called “public schools”, we all recognize the concept of “the pecking order” – the sequence of priorities, of who dominates, which cliques attain a level of status and recognition, what is allowed and not, where one is invited to enter before or after others; it is the purest form of Darwinian natural selection, no matter what societal and cosmetic impediments and safeguards are put in place in order to engage in social engineering of one sort or another.

People think that this pecking order ends upon graduating from public school; that, somehow, release from high school ends this natural order of survival only for the fittest.  Yet, such pecking orders continue throughout – college; the military; the workplace; families.  They all require a pecking order of one kind or another, precisely because it is “natural” and the selection process is innately driven.

In the fowl world – both as “foul” and “fowl” – birds get to feed from the best and choicest sources based upon size, aggressiveness, and bravado displayed in standing one’s ground.  It is often the same with the human world of foul interactions, despite our claim to having become “civilized” and sophisticated, beyond reproach, somehow now asserting our independence and detachment from the genetically determined patterns of behavior.

More and more, however, it becomes clear that we are never exempted from the essence of our natures.  Aristotle may have asserted the grand stature of man with his rationality and capacity to cogitate, but the reality is that the ancient Greek civilization would soon become overpowered and dominated by the most basest of human instincts – of conquering by might and strength.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to manifest, to reveal, to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, it becomes clear that the old “pecking order” approach again will dominate.

Federal agencies and the Postal Service will assert its cold dominance and indifference to the weak of this world, and weakness is never shown with greater vulnerability than when one must admit that he or she suffers from a medical condition.  Just as the fowls begin to take advantage of shown weaknesses in the pecking order of Darwinian natural, so Federal Agencies and U.S. Postal facilities show no remorse in treating their workers who show weakness with cruelty and aggressive lack of empathy.

Filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is an aggressive step to “fight back” against the rise of the pecking order that is, unfortunately, an inevitable consequences of who we are and continue to be.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Disability Retirement: The tentative step

This is a tough and dangerous world.  No longer a Hobbesian State of Nature nor of War, the Social Contract as envisioned by Locke or Rousseau provides some nominal protection, and thus do we identify ourselves as “civilized” entities in yet a dystopian universe where a greater majority of the rest of the world acts with unconcerned insanity by engaging in senseless wars of mass killings and genocidal encounters.  In such a world, we thoughtlessly bring newborns who must contend with an uncertain future, fraught with challenges unasked for and conflicts yet to be encountered.

Those tentative first steps of a toddler – how we watch with awe and observe with wonderment.  Why is that?  Why is the transition from ambulating as most other mammals do on four legs, to engaging an awkwardly wobble as a bipedal hominid, of such significance?  Is it because it marks the steps of initiation into the club of “civilized” society – that to stand upright and walk with our two feet, as opposed to the addition of the other two appendages, signifies the next stage of growth and maturity?  Yet, that tentative step reveals all, doesn’t it?

It marks the magnification of uncertainty for the future; it reveals the imperfection of the human animal; and it manifests the symbol of insecurity by deliverance of a vulnerable entity thrown into a pit of vipers and hyenas.  We do this to ourselves, and to the ones we say we love.  And as the toddler grows up, through further steps of initiations into a cruel world, how that tentative step cements and molds itself into a characterization of so much of life’s violent encounters.  Whether remembered or not, those nascent steps of uncertainty carry along with us like Pilgrim’s burdensome backpack, weighing upon us at different and varying stages of our lives.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find that a medical condition reenacts those tentative steps taken as a toddler, one becomes reminded that we came into this world uninvited, presented without a guide as to how to go about living life, and suddenly find yourself with a challenge:  No longer able to perform all of the essential elements of your job, your choices are to stay and endure the pain; leave, resign and walk away without anything you worked so hard to attain; or file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

And, like the toddler taking those first tentative steps, this is a new endeavor, a next phase, but probably without those doting parents cheering you on.  As a result, you may need to consult a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement law, if only to steady those two feet as you jump forward into an uncertain future by submitting a Federal Disability Retirement application to the OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Comfort Zones

For animals, they are often designated as “arc of flight” — that invisible periphery where violation results in immediate retreat or thoughtless stampede.  For humans, it is identified as one’s “space”, or “privacy bubble”, and while self-control and societal norms have curtailed and somewhat dulled the thousands of years of evolutionary refinements to reactive instincts, the palpable discomfort manifested, the shifting unease of taboos violated, and for some, an onset of panic and heightened anxiety are the resulting characteristics of Darwinian antecedents.

Comfort zones apply to the generic aegis of such unseen safety nets.  For most of us, it is comprised of predictability and the security which comes from repetitive monotony.  That is why, even to one’s detriment, one will cling to the known quantity, even if the attraction of the unknown outweighs with obvious benefits and accruals.  Like the frog which sits calmly in a pot of water ever increasingly rising in temperature, the person who walks about within the confines of one’s comfort zone is in danger always of violative harm.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the question of the flashpoint — the intersection of continuing in one’s capacity and the harm it inflicts by doing so — is a complex admixture of needs, wants, comfort zones and the desire to persist.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers are a hard-working bunch who, in their collective stubbornness, refuse to give up.  Whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset matters not; it is not the system, the benefits nor the years of service; rather, it is often the career itself and the involvement with the “mission of the agency”.  It is a sense of belonging, of being part of a group of individuals, an agency, a department, and always with a sense of purpose and sometimes with a clarity of future endeavors.

Having gone to work for these many years, the value of daily routine cannot be underestimated, and therein lies the essence of one’s comfort zone:  life and the foreseeable future.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is a violation of one’s comfort zone.  It is tantamount to entering the arc of flight for a flock of sheep, or the privacy bubble at a social gathering.  But when a medical condition mandates the necessity of a step for self-preservation, any consideration for one’s comfort zone should be set aside, as the road to attaining the purposive end of an OPM Disability Retirement annuity may test the very fabric of invisible characteristics yet to be revealed.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Word Additions

When viewing a landscape, does the utterance of words add anything to the beauty or desolation?  When rage wells up within a tormented soul, do words which convey a rational thought process ameliorate the temperament in any way?  Whether, in the evolutionary progression of one’s biological apparatus, the appearance of language beyond fundamental communication (e.g., for advanced warning of dangers, conveying of location, and similarly basic devices of informational immediacy) enhances the meaningfulness of the thing itself, is a question beyond mere pedantic interest.

Does a person add anything to the beauty of a red dawn, by describing it with words and conceptual constructs?  Or, better yet, do we glean any greater understanding by descriptive means, or does it merely camouflage the exquisiteness of the thing itself?  There are exceptions.

Medical conditions, and the need to understand their origin, impact, treatment modalities and prognosis allow for individuals to makes decisions based upon information gathered.  The pain itself, or the destructive and progressively debilitating nature of a medical condition, may not require descriptive devices of deciphering linguistic dalliances; but for the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker who must map out one’s future course of actions, the words which one chooses to employ can make all the difference in the conceptual world we live in.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit available to all Federal and Postal employees who find themselves with a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job.

For Federal and Postal employees under FERS (which most Federal and Postal employees are under, inasmuch as CSRS and CSRS Offset employees are becoming rarer by the year), a minimum of 18 months of Federal Service must be accumulated; but once that threshold is met, it is the evidentiary sufficiency based upon the legal criteria as mandated by statute, the courts, and the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, which must be complied with through the use of words.

In viewing beauty, words rarely add; in experiencing feelings, language often merely complicates; but in engaging a complex bureaucratic process, words and conceptual constructs add to the future viability of one’s capacity to meet the complex challenges of an ever-changing world.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire