It should be well established that a person has one year from the time of separation from Federal Service to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits. Separation, obviously, has to be related to medical reasons; however, in cases where separation was given for other “official” causes (e.g. disciplinary), if the applicant can show that the underlined separation reasons were ultimately medical (e.g. stress), benefits will be awarded according to OPM Disability law.