Last Updated on February 17, 2021 by FERS Disability Attorney
Whether an Agency is willing to wait while a Federal or Postal employee files for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, or if removal becomes the preferred action, is always a concern to the Federal or Postal employee.
Often, no matter what medical documentation is submitted as documentary proof of one’s inability to come to work, an Agency will insist that a Federal employee is “AWOL” because of some minutiae or technicality in the paperwork provided. Regardless (no, I will not use the grammatically incorrect non-word, “irregardless”, which is a combined double-negative of the suffix and prefix, leaving the root word “regarding” intact, thereby making irrelevant the necessity of both the prefix and the suffix) of the Agency’s actions, it is important for the Federal or Postal employee to proceed with his or her Federal Disability Retirement application.
Attempting to predict how the agency will act or react; waiting upon an Agency’s response — ultimately, one must proceed affirmatively and not be concerned with what the Agency will or will not do. Concurrently, however, the Federal or Postal employee should respond to an Agency’s removal actions.
Sometimes, if in fact the Agency is able to produce sufficient “evidence” to justify an adverse removal action (lack of sufficient notice; lack of medical justification submitted in a timely manner; violation of PIP provisions; violation of previously-imposed leave restrictions, etc.), an offer of resignation in order to maintain the official personnel file “clean” of any such adverse actions, is a reasonable course to take, both for the Agency as well as for the Federal or Postal employee.
More often than not, the Agency will be responsive to opening a discussion for a mutually beneficial removal based upon one’s medical inability to perform the essential elements of one’s job. Since the same medical documentation to prove one’s medical disability retirement application should be sufficient to justify such a removal, the timing of such a removal could not be better.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Injured at work 6/13/2008 owcp case exhausted all personal leave was written up for 220 hrs of awol proposed 15 day suspension . injured at work 8/18/2009 owcp case occupational medicine physican will not put me on medical leave have exhausted all personal leave warehouse supervisor will not accomodate work restrictions and every time I call in because my back injury is too aggravated to work and the oxycodone no longer takes the pain away and the trigger point back injections work no longer the pain I request for leave without pay he denies the requests and records the as awol absent without leave. I was removed from federal service 240 hrs awol .union rep presented no evidence on my behalf and he failed to filr petition for reveiw electronically on time have any recomendations?