FERS Disability

Last Updated on March 17, 2022 by FERS Disability Attorney

Once the acceptance of dissociative dichotomy between language and the objective world became entrenched, the path of ease with which to tinker with language in order to adeptly fit language to reality (i.e., redefine words, concepts and meanings) became a simple next step in the process.

There are, of course, limitations.  A rock thrown and shattering a bottle is difficult to avoid, no matter how much linguistic gymnastics may be engaged.  For reality-based situations which must encounter the language game, one cannot come closer to the correspondence necessary than when one encounters a medical condition.

For the Federal and Postal Worker who must confront the reality of a medical condition, such that the medical condition impacts one’s life, livelihood and future financial security, the reality of the importance of “getting it right” is never more certain.

Often, the question is asked on a purely linguistic level: Will medical condition-X qualify me?  That is the wrong question.

For, Federal Disability Retirement, whether under FERS or CSRS, filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the question must be asked in an alternative manner, because the entire process of proving one’s case is unlike Social Security Disability and other forums.

In those “other” criteria, the identification of the medical condition itself — i.e., the linguistic identification of the issue — will often be enough to determine qualification criteria.  But for Federal Disability Retirement purposes, it is the direct encounter and confrontation between language and reality which must be faced and embraced: Not “what” identified medical condition, but rather, “how” the medical condition impacts, in the real world, the essential elements of one’s job and how one can adequately perform them.

Thus, Federal/Postal Disability Retirement cannot avoid the correspondence between language and reality; it is that very question touching upon the nexus between language (the identified medical condition) and reality (how that medical condition impacts the physical or cognitive ability of the worker to engage in the world) which must be answered.  Thus, no matter what linguistic deconstructionists declare: language does require a correspondence with reality, and truth does still matter despite the hard-fought and persistent attempts to otherwise make irrelevant that which we all accept in the everyday world.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire