David Hatch vs OPM – note: Hatch is a Postal Worker

The Office of Personnel Management is changing the way it calculates service toward retirement for certain employees on workers’ compensation, agency officials announced last week.

According to an OPM benefits administration letter, federal employees on workers’ compensation who hold a full-time appointment but are able to work only part-time now will be credited for full-time service.

OPM’s previous interpretation of civil service law held that these employees were not entitled to full-time credit when they worked, for example, four hours per day and received workers’ compensation benefits for the other four hours. But a 2005 decision by the Merit Systems Protection Board struck down OPM’s interpretation and ruled that full-time credit should be allowed since these employees initially were given full-time appointments.

In the case, David Hatch v. OPM, Hatch was elected to a full-time position with the U.S. Postal Service in 1966, but was injured on the job in 1990 and was carried on the payroll in leave without pay status for almost three years. Hatch received payments through workers’ compensation for that period, and in 1993, returned to work at USPS in a limited duty assignment. He was reassigned to a modified letter carrier position in 1995. Hatch was able to work only four hours a day in each assignment and received workers’ compensation for the remaining four hours of each day the agency placed him in a leave without pay status.

Hatch retired in 2002, only to find that OPM determined that his service between the date he returned to work and the date of his retirement should be considered part-time service, thus reducing his annuity. MSPB determined that OPM was required by law to award Hatch retirement credit for full-time service for the time he was in a leave without pay status

read full story from Govexec.com or read MSPB decision –David Hatch vs OPM 

OPM Director Linda M. Springer responded to APWU on Feb. 10, 2006 , writing, “OPM will apply the decision in all factually similar cases, both under (CSRS and FERS). This includes new applications for retirement benefits as well as cases that come to the attention of OPM for any reason, regardless of the commencing date of the annuity.”