JR Reihs

Gary It is not as scary as you may think. 1. Take the award letter in to the PO, tell your supervisor that you are requesting accomodations per your SC injuries, and that you would like to have a interactive process started. By doing this you have put the PO on notice that you need help working your job. 2. The PO being who they are has the right to initiate a fittness for duty exam if you have not provided them with any restrictions you are seeking, or they may give you a restriction form to have your doctor fill out or both. 3. After this process is complete then they will determine whether or not they can accomodate you, if they cannot then you will be given your rights, to include disability retirement under OPM. If the agency failes to accomodate you then you have the right to file a MSPB or EEOC for failur to accomodate under 5 CFR 353, and the Rehab act, but at the same time you can get the OPM retirement and fight the PO for discrimination. 4. You can bust the PO if they screw it up, which they probably will, and you will get your IU and OPM with very lil hassle , and still persue the PO on the discrimination claim. I would only give the PO a copy of the award as it relates to you condition and %, nothing more, as I said you have options you need to study, and you have all the time you want if you are comfortable in a job you can do without hurting for 8 hrs per day. You also may want to put it in writing that you are requesting accomodations, if you can get you doctor to list limitations before hand that is good but not required. remember you are not trying to get out of work you are requesting to work under limitations to continue to work. It will be up to the agency to accomodate you, and they have a continuing obligation to do so.

Gary now that you have the letter.....take it to the PO, tell them that you need accomodations because of you SC conditions........Make them make the next move..........pretty much garuntee they will either offer you the retirement or screw up the accomodation request. This will start the process of you exit.......but it will be on your terms not theirs.

Gary, Great news.......go splurge on you and your family. I know it was a hard wait , but now that part is over , relax and enjoy.

Hollywood The agency's are famous to use the Williams case as the Supreme Court realy put it to the disabled, in this ruling as it pertains to major life activities and limited claims to such, Never File Under ADA, always use Rehab Act. You can continue with EEOC if you prefer but after 120 days of this you can file with the MSPB, Much faster, and you can still continue with the discrimination claim. the agency is only blowing smoke with the summary judgement, as this is like the VA and computer generated letters......the agency is just trying to frustrate you in this, by making you file more resonces hoping that you will screw up.

Gary You are good to go on the IU. If you request the PO to accomodate you for your disabilities they must comply, if they do not you can rake them through the coals. Keep in mind under the current conditions of the postal service, they WILL retire you without question if you ask, but if you want to hang in there for a lil while longer they must accomodate you. Look around the office for a job you might could do if they would acomodate you, and ask for it in writing , and the reasons why, make sure they are aware that you are now 90% SC this will set them on edge. Any problems you might have with them , I will help you put them in their place, as I stated to you before you have many options in your situation.

Gail Sorry to hear about your plight in this, but if you do not have a order from a court showing that you are his Widow, you are beating a dead horse with the VA. Even if you have one, this still may not entitle you to DIC. I wish you luck, as you are fighting an uphill battle, without the ammo that you need.

Gail I am not to say that you are or not entitled to the benefits you claim, but you realy need to hire 2 diffrent lawyers , one in the common law state.......and one where he re married, both must be willing to work together, as multiple court actions will need to be filed in both states to declare which marrige will hold, both yours and his separate and together. Without this court order you will probably not get anywhere with the VA given that both of you remarried.

Todd Congrats, if it says T&P then use the award letter and file for Champ VA for wife, and lil ones if you have any, also your wife could go to college, you can apply for a DOD card, and start checking on property exemptions, do this now.....if already paid take the letter for proof of date and get a refund.

Hollywood As you have posted it looks as though you are headed in the right direction. The contract is very sticky as you must prove that you were in fact an employee, the courts have not been very predictible in contract breach cases. You must prove that you were in fact an employee, I will try to locate a couple of cases that may help you, or at least show what you need to prove. One thing if I read correctly is you state you received ALL benefits afforded to a Federal employee, if this is so, and you are only 2 1/2 days short of a year without any prior disipline then your case has teeth. If you can prove that they failed to accomodate within your term your case is strenthend as you would not be expected to preform sucessfully without accomodations, and therefore shows intent by the agency on discrimination by failure or refusal to accomodate. If the agency has failed to report your injury then you need to write the Secratary of Labor, and seek their help, and agency only has 30 days to report. This also can show agency intent to discriminate. There are alot of things to go into on these types of claims, they are very involved and each is open to interpratation on the face, just be careful because the agency , and even the court will suprize you at any given time, and do not let the agency Muddy the waters of your claim, they will at sometime try this if not already. You are right that by being under OWCP give you the right to file under a protected class, but believe me that this is the only protection that you have under it if the agency is claiming prior record, or poor preformance. If you ever want to talk about this feel free to e-mail me.

Hollywood OWCP does not have the effect of an umbrella while it is in effect. If you were terminated because of a non legitimate reason that was in part or whole due to the OWCP claim then you have some good protection. But if you were terminated because of another reason not related to your injury then you have no protection under OWCP unless you can show a NEXIS. Read the CFR's as it pertains to your situation. You stated that you were already in court, which court? You also may have rights under VSERRA, which falls into the Department of Labor.

Gary if it says 78 then it is but you might want to confirm it. What you get depends on how it effect's your previous rating.

Hollywood, I am not a lawyer, just a former postal employee who had to learn the ropes the hard way. I have done several EEOC claims along with MSPB claims. I now get some enjoyment out of doing these, although at times I get very frustrated as the playing feild you are on is not a level one. I will say to anyone that files under the ADA needs to be very careful due to the Williams v. Toyota , the Supreme Court realy stuck it to the disabled in this case. I always use the Rehab Act, and wait for the agency to screw up which they eventualy do in these cases. I would rather proceed in the MSPB forum, and I was wondering why you did not opt for this instead of the EEOC? In my opinion it is much quicker, and less intrusive than the EEOC.

Ginger Wow great news, thats 3 in one day. Its been a long dry spell for success stories. Enjoy yourselves .

Gary Many happy congrat's to you. I would however rethink about not filing an NOD on the claims you feel you were lowballed on, it might not mean much now but who knows what problems life will deal us at a later date. But if you are Happy , we are Happy for ya. ;)

Todd I agree with Wings , so I will sayCONGRATULATIONS !!!!! ;)

Linda You might want to try and contact the insurance comissioner in your state, they may be able to help you.

Hollywood, I would be happy to help you in your EEOC case,I have done a few of these along with MSPB. You are right when you say a Lawyer will not touch it unless you have a fistful of cash, and then you do most of the legwork to boot.

Jim Thanks for that info, I had no idea that the Va would pay for a vehicle, I just thought that adaptive equipment was it. Learn something new everyday.

You will get the same as a 100% vet because you are one, only your rating says you are 80%P&T. You must understand that you cannot aquire the P&T unless you have been given the IU wich brings you to 100%. Today you got paid, are you getting the 100% pay? Call or go to the RO, and ask them for a letter for a DOD card, if you are P&T you will get one, you can also use that as proof for property taxes, Champ VA, and any benifits your state may have. even though your rating states 80% you have been given IU by virtue of P&T, wich pays you the extra 20% , for you minds sake you may want to have the VAMC correct to show that you are 80% with IU P&T wich equals the 100% rating. You also can get free dental care at the VAMC under this rating. Your award letter should have stated that you were rated at 80% but that IU was granted because you cannot work, and they granted P&T because you will not get better so you are paid at the 100% rate, and with that said you are considered for all things a 100% disabled Vet.

80% with IU P&T = 100% entitlements including ID , Chapter 35 and anything else that goes along with being 100% disabled by the VA.

P&T with 80% means that you must have acuired IU, and can not work period, and you would therefore be paid at the 100% rate. If you have a rating that is 100% and qualifies for P&T, then you could still work and draw both, but you are subject to more reveiws if you are not considered unemployable.

It now seems that anyone that is in or contemplating on using the educational benefits needs to get ready for long delays with processing. I called to check on the status of my wifes Chapter 35 benefits today and was told, ( we will get to it when we get to it ) I was P***ed to say the least, I ask the lady in a nice way if we could expect a retro before she graduates , and I guess she did not like that question as she said it takes 8 to 16 weeks fron filing time. I told her that my son used his last year but that he was now enlisted in the Airforce, so he did not return but at that time they were processing in 4 to 6 weeks, well I got the ( It was last year excuse.) Now that I am realy PO'ed about this , does someone have the ST louis directors name and or E-mail addy? I feel like I have just filed a claim for SC comp , more waiting hoops to jump through ARRRGGG. This is not Rocket Science, they have all the info, and have had it for almost 3 months.

Gary By your post I think you are safe in that I feel your Knee will be rated between 20&30%, and you will get the 10 % for the arthritis.........BUT you should realy get an IMO for the knee and be prepared to NOD the coming rating, anything below 30 % on your knee is a low ball with what you described as the condition. Remember that over time you will be straining other parts to make up for the weakness in the knee, so you need to be prepared to file secondary conditions as they may waranted. You need to seek and keep in touch with a good ORTHO to continualy deal with this, so I would find a good one if I were you. Do not worry about the PO Slugs, just hang in there until you think you are ready to go, if you need help , there are several of us who can guide you through the maze.......just keep pluging your thrift plan with as much as you can until then. This is YOUR MONEY, you have complete control over how you want it, and it may help you over this transitional hump oneday.

Simply Write to Zimmer in this and ask for their protocall on this. They should have do's and dont's on how to implant and if something goes wrong ...how to fix. This should be a set of directives to follow and see if any special training was needed in order for the surgeon to qualify to implant or fix complications after an implant. You should be able to get this information through a FOIA request, and the surgeons qualifacations in Discovery through the 1151 claim. Once you get this information, you may want to do research to find a Ortho Surgeon that has the most experience in this and let he or she give you a IMO after reveiw of medical records or exam, it may cost a lil now but you may be getting great return in the future both money wise and phisicaly as they may be able to help fix the problem.

Thanks Wally, was never good at regular math let alone VA fuzzy math.