A jury in Victoria, Texas has awarded $257,048 to Ramundo Ruiz, a former security officer at the federal courthouse in Victoria, Texas.

Ruiz worked as a federal courthouse guard until 2006, when he was fired after failing a hearing test. Ruiz was not allowed to use a hearing aid in that test. Ruiz can hear well when he wears his hearing aid, and workplace rules permitted him to wear hearing aids while he worked

The [...]

Earlier, I posted about the process to seek waiver (or reduction of repayment schedule) of an overpayment of retirement benefits.

To give you an idea how this works in reality, I thought I’d break down a recent MSPB Initial Decision (San Francisco Regional Office, October 2008).

In that case, the Appellant received an overpayment of retirement benefits. She had applied, and was granted, disability retirement from OPM in 2004. It took until 2007 for her to receive [...]

How much will my disability retirement annuity be?

Generally speaking, your FERS disability retirement annuity will be 60% of your high-3 average salary minus 100% of your Social security benefit for the first 12 months. After 12 months, the FERS disability retirement annuity is reduced to 40% of your high-3 average salary minus 60% of your Social Security benefit. Please see the OPM Website for a chart that explains when this general computation [...]

Earlier this fall, Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act of 2008. The Act takes effect on January 1, 2009, but most attorneys – private sector and government sector alike – are unfamiliar with the strictures of the new law.

Most practitioners that are aware of the ADA Amendments Act are unsure of how the new law will affect disabled employees; generally, most of us are excited about the broadened protections that the [...]

Often times, Agencies persuade employees to settle their removal appeal by agreeing to alter the removal grounds so that the employee is removed for medical inability to perform the functions of their job.

Read more about this by clicking here.

In other situations, federal employees are advised that such a removal is almost a guaranteed basis for securing disability retirement. Generally, it is true that a Federal employee who [...]