CSRS & FERS Medical Disability Retirement: The Supervisor’s Statement

Last Updated on February 4, 2011

The Supervisor’s Statement (Standard Form 3112B) should be a form with negligible impact, unless it is to inform the Office of Personnel Management that (A) the individual Disability Retirement applicant was placed in a light duty, temporary position, (B) that the Agency could not accommodate him/her, and (C) to describe how the Federal or Postal employee filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits was by all appearances limited in his/her ability to perform many of the essential elements of the job.  Such statements are often helpful to the Office of Personnel Management in a Federal Disability Retirement case.  

Most Supervisor’s Statements, however, are noncommittal. The lack of information provided by a supervisor reflects poorly upon the supervisor, insofar as it evidences non-engagement and lack of awareness of someone whose job it is to be aware of such things.  Every now and then, there will be a Supervisor who goes out of his or her way to make statements which clearly attempt to undermine a Federal Disability claim.  The way to approach such a Supervisor’s Statement, however, is not to focus a great amount of attention upon it; rather, to remind the Office of Personnel Management that this is a “medical” disability retirement application, and not a Supervisor’s disability retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire