If the Application Is Denied

FERS Disability Retirement Application: Denials

November 12, 2019

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. […]

OPM Disability Retirement: Responding to a Denial

August 31, 2019

More than ever, OPM is denying FERS Disability Retirement applications. Whether by deliberate design, tightening of legal criteria, imposition of an informal quota system or “just because”, it is clear that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management has instituted a campaign of denying Federal Disability Retirement benefits to applicants seeking it. […]

OPM Disability Retirement: The Arbitrary Denial

August 1, 2019

A denial from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management of a Federal Disability Retirement application is disappointing enough. For, after waiting for countless and seemingly endless months, exhausting one’s resources and relying upon the reality of one’s medical conditions and limitations thereby imposed in persuading OPM to draw […]

OPM Disability Retirement Denials: Selective reasoning

April 29, 2019

Of course, we all engage in it; some, merely by withholding certain known facts; others, by emphasizing and asserting portions of the logic employed while ignoring or deliberately averting the focus of other aspects. Selective reasoning through deliberate omission is the height of pragmatic oppression; for, when it is accomplished with knowledge and self-admission of premeditation, it involves a mind that knows the difference between proper application of logical reasoning and the intentional misrepresentation of facts. […]

OPM Lawyers Strategy: What If My OPM Disability Claim Is Denied?

January 22, 2019

Doubting can become infectious. Once the confidence wanes, the seeds of doubt have been planted; once the seeds begin to sprout, further fears of shaken self-confidence begin to appear, and the shattering of a once-certain sense of calm begins to pervade insidiously within the soul of a questioning mind. A denial from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in a Federal Disability Retirement case is intended to do exactly that: Doubt the strength of your case. […]

Legal Representation on Federal Disability Retirement Claims: “As if”

November 2, 2018

Why are OPM’s denials of a Federal Disability Retirement application written “as if” it is an “all of nothing” proposition? Conversely, why does an approval of a Federal Disability Retirement application (with the exception of the single sentence which identifies the medical conditions upon which the approval is based) reflect a regurgitation of a template used on countless occasions dating back decades? […]

Levels of Argumentation in OPM Disability Retirement

September 9, 2015

In a perfect universe, logic should prevail and the superior argument would be identified, recognized and accepted. In a less-than-perfect universe (the state in which we unfortunately find ourselves), pragmatic factors involving power, authority, competency and non-substantive, peripheral issues must always be considered, and incorporated accordingly. In the “unofficial rules” of argumentative methodology, three elements must be present: (A) The ability and capacity to recognize a superior argument, (B) the willingness to concede one’s own inferiority of the proffer, […]

Federal Disability Retirement: The Symbiotic Relationship

October 20, 2014

In biology, symbiosis refers to the interaction between two different organisms, often benefiting both. It is the coexistence through the capacity to acquire greater advantage without diminishment and harm to the other, which then allows for the balance of nature to occur. In other contexts, in differing circumstances or changed environments, perhaps the relationship and the interaction would alter, […]

Federal Disability Reconsiderations & Additional Medical Information

October 18, 2014

The denial comes in the mail; it is a further delay, a negation of prior efforts; for many, it undermines and constitutes a condemnation of sorts, and a refusal of an affirmation sought in places and from people where none is offered. It is, after all, another piece of correspondence which negates the negative: the medical condition itself and the loss of one’s ability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, represented the first foundation of negation; now, a denial from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management merely confirms, via a second negation, the loss of positive forces inherent in failure and Federal bureaucracies. […]

Federal Disability Retirement: Reconsideration Selectivity

April 28, 2014

Perceptual selectivity is an adaptive process of some evolutionary benefits; otherwise, the voluminous extent of bombarding stimuli would be too much to process and digest. We naturally focus upon certain perceptual activities; perhaps it is the brighter colors, […]