From PostalReporter.com reader:

A very important precedent has been issued regarding evidence of disability for disability retirement. Both OPM and MSPB were sharply rebuked for requiring objective evidence of disability. Objective evidence is difficult to get in many psychiatric cases.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that medical evidence could not be rejected solely because it lacked so-called “objective” measures such as laboratory tests.

Background

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) had to consider all competent medical evidence of a disability retirement applicant, and the applicant could prevail based on medical evidence that consisted of a medical professional’s conclusive diagnosis, even if based primarily on his/her analysis of the applicant’s own subjective descriptions of symptoms and other indicia of disability. Thus, the submitted medical evidence could not be rejected solely because it lacked so-called “objective” measures such as laboratory tests.

Vanieken-Ryals v. Office of Personnel Management, (C.A.Fed.)