Disability Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Being “somebody”

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 …

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS or CSRS: The carefully crafted life

But that we could just write the narrative of our life, reflecting briefly upon our past, describing the present condition of being, but most importantly, to carefully craft the anticipated future of our lives in process. What is revealed from one’s past is telling of a person’s character; of the present, a manifestation of the compass of one’s heart; and to the narrative of one’s future? If the cultivation of one’s soul is the essence of the teleological process of life, the content of what we insert into the delineated poetry of future actions will uncover the truth in being of our damaged and tortured souls. […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: Those Strands That Bind

Issues in life are rarely singular or simple; instead, they tend to be like a spider’s web, woven into a complex fabric of intricate turbulence, beautiful in its interlacing connections, waiting attractively for its prey unbeknownst to the subtle entanglements welcoming patiently. And so do we walk right into those strands that bind. Legal issues are like that. They rarely present themselves in clean lines of linear singularities. Instead, like relationships, children and the dawn of technological innovation, they criss-cross through boundaries yet unknown, with dangers foreboding beyond consequences plainly displayed and forever mysterious. […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Blowing in the Wind

Of course, the reference recognized unmasks the age or generation from whence one comes, and the formal wording without the apostrophe is to allow spellcheck a rest and curtail the red underline. It is the 1962 Dylan song, representing questions unanswered, answers made complex by society, and sought-after refrains which defy conformity. […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: Pursuing the Daily Divide

The bifurcation of our lives is a habit of accepted normative behavior; for most, it is the simple divide between one’s personal life and professional endeavors; then, there are sub-categories of complicated spectrums, where criminal activity is pigeonholed from a daytime semblance of respectability, or deviant behavior is concealed from one’s reputation and facade of societal refinement. Those separations make for ease of transition, or used to. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement Law: Causality

Worker’s Comp requires it; Social Security disregards it; and OPM Disability Retirement shifts the issue into a different arena. “Causality” encapsulates the relationship between two or more events, where one is thought to result from another, or put a different way, where “responsibility” for a given effect is attributed to a prior conditional occurrence fulfilled as sufficient to warrant as being the “cause” of that event. […] Read More …

Expanding the Significance of Individual Federal Employee Disability Cases

Lawyers daily engage in it; courts are sometimes receptive to it; the public is rarely approving of it. Expanding the literal language of a statute by reading meaning into words, phrases and conceptual paradigms not otherwise manifested or obvious in the words enacted, is a language game which some call intellectual brilliance, while others deem to be disingenuous or otherwise dishonest, to be blunt about it. The “it”, of course, is the compendium of the expanded impact and relevance of consequences resulting from statutory language, some intended, others unintended. […]

 
Read More …