opm schedule a disability list

Disability Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Being “somebody”

Posted onAuthorRobert McGillLeave a comment

Such a phrase cannot pass by without a reference – whether directly or by innuendo – to that famous scene in, On the Waterfront, when Marlon Brando, playing Terry, tells his brother, “I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am…” “Being” somebody presupposes certain antecedents that need to be explicated, like the archaeologist who carefully brushes away the soil and debris concealing the prize of ancient artifacts, lest the unveiled site remains hidden in the mystery troves of undiscovered histories. To begin with, it establishes a sense of existence, [….] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: A remnant of bygone memories

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement AttorneyLeave a comment

Memories are funny animals; they travel and traverse endless miles of countless eternities, over fences artificially constructed and through tunnels built within the deep caverns of one’s mind; and in the end, they represent only a slice of accuracy in the whole of what really happened. Sometimes, even after decades of being together with a “significant other”, […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The wish for erasure

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement AttorneyLeave a comment

Once, we used pencils because such implements are almost always accompanied by an eraser.  It was an acknowledgment of human imperfection, of the potentiality for making a mistake, and the realization that any extent of human activity should recognize the wish, the need and reality for erasure.  But that such corrections could similarly be made for lives lived, hurts fostered and damages perpetrated.  Yet, the historical requirement that has necessitated the wish for erasure has itself been erased, or significantly diminished – of a conscience instilled and allowed for maturation, […] Read More …

Early Retirement for Disabled Federal Gov. Employees: Noted durations

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement AttorneyLeave a comment

Don’t you hate those “Apps” that reveal how much time you have taken to engage Activity-X or mindless-video-game-Y?  To engage in an aside for pure enjoyment’s sake is to get lost in the moment of leisure, to become engrossed and without a mind to time, problems of the world, circumstances of the present or the irrelevancy of one’s own station in life.  To read a book – perhaps of no great consequence, neither a “classic” nor a best seller of sorts; to push buttons in responding to a mindless video game; to have a silly electronic conversation with a spouse, a friend, a daughter or son aside from the seriousness of wisdom, […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: The narrative we write

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement AttorneyLeave a comment

The narrative we write tells much about ourselves.  That is quite an obvious statement.  What is not obvious, however, is the discretion we apply, the self-restraint we reveal, and the manifested fences we install through invisible means of editing and erasing.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS of CSRS Offset, the importance of the narrative we write in response to the queries on SF 3112A (“Applicant’s Statement of Disability”) is merely but a condition-precedent of the foundational evidence we must submit to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Functional architecture

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement AttorneyLeave a comment

It refers to those unnecessary trappings; but of course, the immediate question which follows is: who determines necessity as opposed to aesthetic addendums otherwise of utilitarian vacuity. The traditional approach in functional architecture is determined by the general principle that a building should be designed by the paradigmatic governance of the underlying purpose for which the structure should be constructed. That is likely why government buildings are essentially drab and colorless, reflecting the purposive nature of a bureaucracy and administrative conduits. […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: Fairytales, mythologies and lies

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement Attorney1 Comment

They all constitute the arena of “make-believe”.  Yet, we excuse the first, ignore the second, and feel guilt and shame for embracing the third – or, at least some of us, do.  Of fairytales, we share in the delight of passing on such tall tales of wonderlands and Eskimo nights full of shooting stars and talking Polar Bears; of mythologies, we recognize the need for lost civilizations to have embraced a means […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from OPM: Dreams, daydreams and nightmares

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement Attorney1 Comment

Of the first in this triplet trope, the concept can envision two distinct avenues:  in a state of somnolence, to have them with minimal control of appearance; or, in another sense, to possess aspirations beyond one’s station in life or current circumstances that may impute dissatisfaction.  The second in the series is somewhat connected to the second concept branching from the first;  […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Fodder for our own folly

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement AttorneyLeave a comment

We often collect that which we know we need not; and of fodder for other’s play, who but the foolish gather the refuse of one’s own folly? Why does youth engage in a greater percentage of folly, and why do old men insist upon driving uncomfortable cars which make them look foolish once they park and struggle to get out from a position of near-supine discomfort so debilitating that you can almost see the decrepit arches of an arthritic back? Foolishness, of course, is not the reserve of the young only, as middle-aged men with youthful grins and old men with conniving friends whose sole purpose in remaining a soul-mate is contingent upon peeking at the bank account of retirees, reveal and manifest daily. […] Read More …