FERS Disability

Last Updated on August 8, 2011 by FERS Disability Attorney

Preparing, formulating and filing for a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS must necessarily involve the preparation for a response to a denial, issued by the Office of Personnel Management.  To resist and avoid contemplating such a potential event is to disregard an inevitable probability.  

As has been acknowledged before, most Federal and Postal employees believe that his or her Federal Disability Retirement application which has been submitted to the Office of Personnel Management, is a “slam dunk” case; that, because of the severity of the medical condition experienced, and its “obvious” impact upon one’s ability/inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, there is simply no conceivable way in which OPM could deny the application.  But that life only presented a singular perspective on all issues; dictatorial control of all ideas would certainly simplify the world; conceptual certainty without opposing views would make irrelevant the necessity of the entire judicial system.  But that is not how life operates.  

To the question:  What can we do about conflicting ideas?  Is the answer:  That is why there is in place a procedural mechanism which often involves the need for a Judge to render a decision adjudicating the dispute.  Responding to a denial from the Office of Personnel Management is the first step to engaging in the procedural mechanism of the resolution of disputed perspectives.  OPM has their job; the Federal or Postal employee has his or her job to do.  

Whatever the substantive basis for the dispute, what is necessary is first and foremost to respond to the Office of Personnel Management, and before that, to prepare for a denial, and be ready to respond appropriately.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire