The Merit Systems Protection Board recently vacated an Office of Personnel Management decision denying a U.S. Postal Service letter carrier disability retirement benefits. After the letter carrier developed several medical conditions that prohibited her from performing the duties of a letter carrier, she accepted the postal service’s offer of a rehabilitation position that her medical conditions allowed her to fulfill.
The letter carrier stopped working, and later filed for disability retirement benefits, citing numerous additional medical conditions that prohibited her from performing her duties. When OPM denied the application, finding her ineligible because the rehabilitation position was an accommodation, and after an administrative law judge agreed, the letter carrier appealed to the Board.
To be eligible for FERS disability retirement, an employee must have served for over eighteen months and must not have declined a reasonable offer of accommodation of the employee’s position of record or an assignment to a vacant position at the same or higher grade level. In reversing OPM’s determination, the Board found that the letter carrier’s rehabilitation assignment may not constitute a reassignment to a vacant position, or represent an accommodation of the carrier’s position of record, and thus remanded the case for another hearing. If the rehabilitation position does not represent an adequate accommodation or an assignment to a vacant position, the letter carrier would not be precluded from receiving disability retirement benefits on that basis, MSPB held.
The full text of the decision can be found here:
