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

When is the best time to apply for  federal disability retirement as a federal employee or a postal worker?  The quick and easy answer to this question is “when you can no longer work because of your medical condition”.

If you have medical conditions, however, and you still want to work, then  federal disability retirement may not be the first or most ideal step for you.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act, and the Rehabilitation Act, [...]

A client of the Attig Law Firm and an employee of the Department of Veterans Affairs received a finding of discrimination and award of damages from the EEOC.

Our client is a 28 year civil servant, who applied for an Engineering Draftsman job with the VA.  The client was found to be not “minimally qualified” for the job, and as a result, he was not selected.  At hearing, the client and the Attig Law Firm provided evidence that the ranking official’s [...]

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 [...]

If someone told you that this was their list of medical conditions what would you think, as a layperson, of their chances for getting  federal disability retirement:

Diabetes, congestive heart failure, colorectal cancer, depression, anxiety, and sleep disorder, breathing problems due to severe obesity, unable to climb stairs, unable to walk more than 100 feet without needing to rest, no bowel control due to radiation treatment for the colorectal cancer, three heart attacks, and has been hospitalized seven times for congestive [...]

Here is a link to a great article about OPM Deputy Director Christine Griffin. Ms. Griffin is working to improve the Federal Government’s track record in hiring diverse applicants.  It appears that her focus will be on increasing diversity in Federal Government for females, Hispanics, and disabled workers.

The Federal Government is tasked, by law, with being the Model Employer for hiring and retaining and accommodating disabled employees.  However, in every year since 1994 (with one exception), the percentage of disabled [...]

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.

You can read more [...]

There are, most definitely, more than three (3) ways that Social Security’s decision to grant a FERS federal employee or postal worker disability benefits can affect OPM’s decision on federal disability retirement.  However, there are three significant ways that the Social Security Disability application can affect the Federal employee or USPS employee  federal disability retirement application or benefits from OPM:

1) Social Security is very, very slow in making decisions on Social Security disability applications.   OPM is slow, too, but makes decisions a [...]

One of the requirements of a postal worker or federal employees  federal disability retirement application is the supervisor statement.  In the supervisor statement, the federal employee’s supervisor certifies a number of things. One of things that the federal employee supervisor certifies in the application for federal disability retirement is that the employing federal agency is unable to accommodate the employee.

The question is often asked – how far does the Agency have to go in attempting to accommodate the Federal employee [...]

The “set-aside” rule most commonly becomes an issue in the following scenario.  Federal employees applying for  federal disability retirement through  OPM are required to apply for Social Security disability at the same time they apply to  OPM.

However, the Social Security Administration can take months or even years to issue a final ruling on entitlement to Social Security disability retirement.  When  OPM awards  federal disability retirement to a postal worker or federal employee, and that federal employee or postal worker later [...]