Federal Disability Retirement and MSPB Attorney Chris Attig talks about a tactic to use if OPM is unnecessarily delaying your application for FERS/CSRS disability retirement.

Attorney Chris Attig with the Attig Law Firm in Dallas, Texas, has been named as a 2011 Texas Rising Star by Super Lawyers Magazine.

235 years ago today, the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution calling for the raising of 2 Battalions of Marines, by Captain Samuel Nicholas at Tun Tavern.

Immediately upon their formation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Marines proceeded to attack the fledgling U.S. Navy and take over the ships so that the Marines could take leisurely cruises to their areas of combat operations.  (Just kidding … those of you that know me know that I like to throw a jab or two [...]

Can you use medical evidence, developed after your separation from civil service, to establish entitlement to disability retirement?   A Federal Circuit decision says yes.  In  Reilly v. Office of Personnel Management, 571 F.3d 1372 (Fed. Cir 2009), the Federal Circuit Court held that post-separation medical evidence can be probative of whether the appellant became disabled while serving in a FERS or CSRS position “[w]here proximity in time, lay testimony, or some other evidence provides the requisite link to the [...]

Attorney Chris Attig, an attorney handling Federal Disability Retirement applications and VA Disability Compensation, reports on a recent MSPB Decision that may give some Veterans who were denied Federal Employee Disability Retirement an opportunity to reopen their appeal.

By far, the most common question that applicants for  FERS or CSRS disability retirement ask the  Attig Law Firm is whether and when a federal employee or postal worker should hire an attorney.  There is no easy answer to this question.  No case or situation is the same, so there is no way that any attorney can give you a “standard” answer to this question.  Here is the general guidance that we give to postal workers or federal employees who [...]

Can  OPM deny a federal disability retirement application to a postal worker or federal employee on the grounds that they entered Federal Civil Service with a pre-existing condition?

In some unique situations,  OPM may be able to, so long as their decision does not lead to an absurd result.  In Davis v. OPM, 64 MSPR 1, 4 (1994), the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) reminded practitioners that where an appellant enters Federal service with a pre-existing medical condition, he or she will [...]

Veterans Benefits Attorney Chris Attig discusses comments about Veterans Benefits by Chief Justice William Roberts.

The new Full MSPB has released what appears to be a first step towards improving the protections for Federal employees who are whistleblowers.

In a recent decision, the  MSPB clarified what constitutes a personnel action in an Individual Right of Action (IRA) Appeal.  Weed v. Social Security Administration, 2010 MSPB 23 (January 28, 2010).

In that case, an applicant for Federal Employment complained that an Agency decided not to select him for a postion in reprisal for disclosures he had made in 2006 [...]

OPM is proposing changes in the rules regarding maintenance of personnel files, known as Official Personnel Folders (or, OPF), for former federal employees.  Under the proposed rule change, OPM wants the OPF’s to be solely under the employing agency’s control until the worker leaves the government. Then OPM would be responsible for maintenance.  OPM also wants to change the rules to require the employing agency to be charged for requests for copies of former federal employee OPFs.

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