OPM Disability Retirement Law: The Retrospective

There is a proportional increase as one experiences a greater linear accumulation; some would call it a heavier luggage to carry; others, of a more cynical nature, would term it as mere “baggage”.

The retrospective is engagement of looking back — of recounting memories or dealing with nightmares.  Human beings live in a state of constant turmoil based upon the past, the present and the future.  To be stuck in the past prevents the needed attendance to daily living; to disregard the past and merely live for “the moment”, is to repeat history’s mistakes and foibles; and to only live by greater angst for the future steals from experiencing the joy of today.

The retrospective is always a part of each of us; as we grow older, we tend to relate to things which have impacted us from the past; and so, to that extent, the retrospective is a necessary and natural, material part of our lives.  The key, however, is to resist the temptation of allowing the retrospective to dominate our lives as we grow older.

There is a natural inclination — a deliciousness, if you will — in letting the retrospective rule; for, whether of a trauma or of joyful memories, the retrospective as something which has already passed, is passive by definition and can no longer actively harm us.  Furthermore, it is important to have an objective, true view of the past, and not allow our imagination to warp or otherwise overstate the experiences of the past.

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 current job, it is important to provide a concise retrospective of one’s medical condition, but more importantly, to delineate the current impact.

As always, a balance must be achieved — of how the past is relevant; how the present is impacted; and in a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — how the medical condition will last a minimum of 12 months.

Thus, as with most concerns of life, the retrospective must be put in its proper perspective and context — of how far back; of how much; of what relevance; and it is in this balance of life that the retrospective can be invaluable in its present significance.

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.

 

OPM Disability Retirement Law: The Compelling Reason

We have come to interpret such a concept as one which must rise above the mundane.  A “reason”, in isolation, is simply not enough; instead, it must be “compelling” — that break between a pause and a human action.

People act or remain dull and passive for all sorts of reasons, whether silly, valid, inappropriate or otherwise uninspiring; but when the words which form a basis for sudden action, where even the dullard is spurred into a frenzy of intensity otherwise resembling a sleeping dog on a rainy afternoon where even rabbits ignore its presence — then we know that the “reason” was indeed “compelling”.

Most words and concepts merely lead to other words and concepts; sometimes, they are related; at other times, whether by accident or by deliberation, a logical and causal connection may be recognized between conceptual spheres.  But it is the rare animal when an action results from a word — otherwise known as a reason.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition or injury prompts a call to a lawyer who is an OPM Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer, the “reason” which is “compelling” is quite obvious: The medical condition has come to a critical juncture such that the Federal or Postal worker is concerned enough to know that it has begun to impact the Federal or Postal employee’s ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job.

That is a good thing — to act upon the compelling reason and not let inertia become the prefatory basis of a reason otherwise unstated.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Federal Disability Attorney

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: The Privacy of Weirdness

Privacy provokes weirdness; or so it would seem.  Things which people would not otherwise do, they do in the apparent seclusion of privacy.  It is when the “private” becomes “public” that embarrassment, revelation, uncovering and shame is brought out.

People engage in activities ranging from the mundane to the absurd — and this is often witnessed in that “bubble” created by sitting in one’s car.  The vehicle creates a strange phenomenon — for, although it does not truly provide a privacy space, people get into their vehicles and act as if no one can see them.  Witness how we suddenly dance uninhibited to the music playing when driving; or talk to yourself, or perhaps other acts of weirdness.

Then, of course, there are the more absurd revelations of recent vintage — of weirdness performe while on Zoom when privacy was thought to be the case.

Pain is on the spectrum of weirdness — for, it is a “private” or “subjective” matter, experienced within the bubble of one’s own body and self.  We often try to hide it — but it manifests itself through grimaces and facial contortions.  It can be hidden and masked, but whether it is healthy to do so, is quite another matter.

When the privacy of weirdness — of pain which can no longer be masked — enters the public arena, as in a Federal Disability Retirement case, it is then time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of turning out the privacy of weirdness into a Federal Disability Retirement case.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

OPM Medical Disability for Federal Workers: The Patterned Life

All lives have a pattern; as a metaphor, most patterns are predictable, serene, fairly unimaginative and surely consistent with most others.  Then, there are the outliers — the patterns which zigzag and defy the conventional appearances of a life lived, whether well, badly or somewhere in between.  Are there any lives which possess no pattern at all?  Perhaps.

In the end, of course, a pattern is merely an extrapolated shadow of retrospectively predictable reflective constructs.  Events disrupt patterns — a crisis; a death; an illness; an intervening occurrence, etc.

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 continuing in his or her career, the event which disrupts of pattern of his or her life is the medical condition; the course of the pattern to be determined is the step which is next taken.  Whether your patterned life precipitously careens in extreme ways at the end of a beautifully composed symphony depends upon what is done next.

Consult with a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective FERS Disability Retirement application — one which will end with a pattern of success.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement under FERS: Errors Compounded

We all make mistakes; that is a given, and one of life’s irrefutable truisms.  Aside from the Pope and the untouchables in the movie industry, errors are committed daily, and spouses are there to make sure that we recognize the ill-conceived nature of perfection’s boast, no matter how much we try and cover them up.

An error is forgivable; a repeated error, sometimes laughed at; but errors compounded which could have been avoided are often the ones that retain the lasting vestiges of damage unable to be undone.  Every now and again, you come across a misprint in a newspaper; that is almost to be expected, because newspapers have a deadline, and even with the aid of technological editing in conjunction with the human eye, the rush to print will almost always prefer the tortoise’s path of guarantee.

When one comes across an error in a book — a misplaced word, a misspelled adjective or a skewed layout; well, that is an exception, given the fact that there are less constraints to rush to print, and multiple eyes should have caught the mistake.  If the book becomes a classic, it may well be more valuable with the misprint or error; if it is further enhanced with the author’s autograph, it becomes priceless.

For the rest of us, we simply try and trudge through the self-evident fact of life, that we all commit errors; what we try and do is to prevent errors from compounding.

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, the key is to try and not makes errors in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be ultimately submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Yet, how can you do that if you don’t know the entirety of the administrative process called “Federal Disability Retirement”?

Errors compounded, in the end, often comes about because of lack of knowledge, and to gain that knowledge, it is often a good idea to consult with an “expert” who specializes in the subject-area that one pursues.  For preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, you may want to first consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, if only to avoid those errors compounded.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Preparing the case

For some reason, Federal and Postal workers who “prepare” and submit a Federal Disability Retirement application, do so without much thought as to what is entailed by the entire process.

They will often rely upon what the “Human Resource Office” tells them — of forms to fill out, what form to give to the doctor, the form to give to the supervisor, etc., and will spend more time trying to figure out the confusing life insurance form than in preparing the Applicant’s Statement of Disability (SF 3112A) or the legal precedents that govern Federal Disability Retirement Law — and then, when it gets denied at the Initial Stage of the process and the Federal or Postal Disability Retirement applicant goes back to the H.R. “Specialist” and asks, “Well, what do I do now?”, the response is: “That is not our problem; that’s a problem you have to deal with.”

Accountability is not known to be a commonly recognized characteristic in a Human Resource Office, and while there are never any guarantees in life, in any sector or endeavor, at a minimum, when one is being “assisted” and guided through an administrative process, it is important to know whether or not whoever you are relying upon will see you through to the end.

Why the Federal or Postal employee who begins the process of preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application does so without the same care, scrutiny and comprehensive approach as one does in “other” legal cases, is a puzzle.

Federal Disability Retirement — whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset — is as complex a case as any other, and should be approached with the same intensity, technical application and expertise as a patent and trademark case, or a complicated medical malpractice filing.  For, a Federal Disability Retirement case involves every aspect of any other type of complex litigation — of the proper medical evidence to gather; of meeting the established legal standard in order to meet the burden of proof; of citing the relevant legal precedents in order to persuade the reviewer at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management; and presenting a compelling description to a “jury” at OPM that one has met the nexus between “having a medical condition” and the inconsistency inherent with the positional duties required, etc.

In the end, preparing the case for submission of a Federal Disability Retirement application involves greater complexity than what the layman can normally account for, and as the fine print in those television commercials state involving sporty vehicles maneuvering at high speeds, you may not want to try this on your own.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney Representation Federal Disability Retirement: Struggles

It is a law of life, is it not?  To struggle; to always have to thrash about just to survive, whether in the world of employment, the world of self-control, the universe of just maintaining a semblance of sanity within a greater complex of madness we face each day?

And, indeed, that is the basis of most philosophical systems that have been posited – from the Ancients who posited permanence as opposed to constant flux (Parmenides and Heraclitus); of the tension between Forms and the world of appearances; of the universe of perspectives empowered between one’s spatial imposition of human categories as opposed to an objective reality that one can never reach (Kant); or merely reducing all philosophical problems to one of linguistic inconvenience (the British Empiricists); and on and on, the struggle to learn, to maintain, to survive.

Life is a constant struggle, and when once peace is attained, we then die, or at least retire to an old person’s home for the forgotten and the ignored.  Even the fairytales we read to our children begin with the struggle, then end with a world of make-believe; only, those types of endings don’t occur in “real life”, and so we have to explain to our children when they get older that, well…heh, heh, heh…it was all a lie – that, unlike the stories told, mom and I hate to tell you this, but the struggles in life never end.  There is no “happily-ever-after” after all.

Then, life brings about a medical condition – those pesky irritants that hopefully can be controlled or maintained with a pill or a stiff drink, but otherwise an indicator that either we are growing old or something in our bodies are trying to forewarn us of the future.  Then, the medical condition begins to magnify, exacerbate, and turn into that state of being “chronic”, and slowly, it begins to deteriorate and progressively impact how we feel, who we are, and what we can do.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, the recognition that life is a constancy of struggles is nothing new; but, what is new is the realization that such a struggle now can become worsened by entering into arenas previously held inviolable – of work and the productivity that was once taken for granted.

Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is not a surrender to that constant struggle, but merely a change of direction and planning.  We all know that life is a constant struggle; sometimes, the struggle must be circumvented by moving onto the next phase of an ever-struggling life, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application to be filed with OPM is that next phase of the constant struggle.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Gov. Employment: Degree versus knowledge

Does a degree hold as much worth, if everyone possesses one?  Why are the economics of supply and demand not attached to degrees conferred by so-called institutions of “higher learning”?  Is the degree conferred of value because of the opportunities granted by the elevated status, or by the knowledge gained and imparted?  Or is the disjunctive bifurcation into universes of counterparts, between diploma represented as opposed to a jewelry box of wisdom, an offer of false alternatives, when some may indeed gain knowledge as well as certification in completion of courses advanced?

If everything is nothing, and nothing constitutes the combined aggregate of everything, can a distinction with a difference be proffered?  So, if everyone has gone to college, and the conferring of a degree is disseminated to all, has nothing been gained by the accessibility to everything?  It is, of course, best represented by Cordelia in Shakespeare’s Tragedy, King Lear, where he responds to the hesitant daughter, “Nothing will come of nothing”, and entreats her to further to expound by extravagant and flowery profusion of meaningless trope; or would it have been meaningless?

The silence which ensues between the cacophony of emotions in the short scene is painful and agonizing.  The old king whose feelings have been devastated; the insincere showering of expressed flattery by his other daughters; the pauses and elongated silences between entreaty and loss of words; for, it is ultimately that wide expanse and abyss between the words fabricated and the intent revealed, which formalizes the fate of a person’s soul and destined catastrophe.

It is the identical nature of a degree versus knowledge, and there are multiple parallels and counterparts of such contending artifices of conceptual constructs enamored; of silence versus quietude; of peace which merely poses as a veil for a ceasefire.  Knowledge is what is lacking in a society that promotes glitter, padded resume and degrees dispensed with abandon and devalued wisdom.

There are exceptions, however, and the pragmatic cynic will counter with:  Would you allow an individual without a medical degree to perform surgery upon a vital organ?  The answer, of course, is an unqualified “no”.  And that is why, in a Federal Disability Retirement application, the case-law conferred and rendered by Administrative Law Judges at the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board have consistently held that a treating doctor possesses the greater credibility in formulating an effective Federal Disability Retirement application in a Federal Disability Retirement case, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

For, like the issue surrounding the distinction between “degree” versus “knowledge”, the medical doctor who has never treated a particular patient, but who certifies that the Federal or Postal worker is unable to perform one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal employee’s positional duties, is likened to a person who wears the formalities of credentials, but lacks the individualized knowledge elevated to the heightened ascendency to wisdom, representing the doctor who has had multiple clinical encounters and can determine the capacity and capabilities of the Federal Disability Retirement applicant with confidence paralleling the man of knowledge who may lack a degree, but never fails to notice the pitfalls present on the pathway to an unlit gaze upon the heavenly stars of folly.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Etymology versus Entomology

The difference in spelling involves more than a single letter; but in using the words in a sentence, the subtle distinction of a single consonant makes for all the relevance in the world.  One refers to the very history and evolution of words, their meaning and usage; the other is a branch of a larger discipline of arthropodology, the subset of which focuses upon insects and the study thereof.

In speech, therefore, the mistaken insertion of the consonant can create a hilarious situation resulting from the unknowing misuse of the word; whereas, in written form, it would probably be quickly identified as a misspelling and overlooked without appreciating the “funny-ness” of the error.  And, as well, the difference between speech and written form allows for checks, re-checks and changes before the final submission of that which is presented to a viewer.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties for the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, the ability of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is an important component in the administrative process itself.

Often, one hears the grumbles and complaints of those who say, “If only I could just explain it…”  As opposed to?  Yes, the intonation and persuasive voice of speech can be an effective tool, and in contrast to the written form, which can be viewed and analyzed over time, the one-time urgency of the used-car salesman can certainly turn the immediacy of a decision into a statistically relevant sales pitch; but that is why submission of a Federal Disability Retirement application is received as a “paper-presentation”, precisely because it involves medical documentation, laws to be applied, and criteria to be analyzed by OPM in order to make a proper decision concerning all Federal Disability Retirement submissions.

It is the written form which allows for expungement and erasures of subtle mistakes; and when the final Federal Disability Retirement application is compiled, submitted and presented, it is the effort of careful deliberation in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement packet which will make all the difference to the administrative specialist at OPM.

For, while a quick sale may be made by the persuasive voice of the used-car salesman, that is precisely the reason why there are laws concerning changed minds after the ink has dried on the signature line of a contract; and like the distinction to be made between “etymology” and “entomology”, the pen must be the sword of choice in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire