If you’re a worker stationed at the USPS Processing and Distribution Center or P&DC, the work that you perform is inherently dangerous. Between maneuvering overloaded rolling bulk mail centers and walking through slick floors, postal clerks and last-mile workers operate in an environment that is inherently chaotic and potentially injurious

For instance, loading an LLV or unloading those giant two-ton trucks requires that you work on sloped concrete, polished steel plates, and ramps that may be coated with ambient moisture as well as residue from forklifts. In just a microsecond, your boot catches the lip of an unaligned dock leveler, or you slip on a slick surface, sending you tumbling to the floor, with a huge package on top of you. The physical fallout is excruciatingly painful: a torn rotator cuff, traumatic brain injury, and lumbar herniations that require immediate transport by emergency medical services.

As you lie in the emergency room waiting to be seen by an orthopedic surgeon, your supervisor, ever the slave driver, wastes no time in initiating damage control in order to protect the agency. When you finally get the time to fill out Form CA-1, management nitpicks your application and points to the language you used – you “suddenly fell” or “your foot got trapped by something that you aren’t familiar with”.

They use this information to check the controverted box on the form, and then inform the OWCP Claims Examiner that you suffered an “idiopathic fall”, stating that you must have had an internal personal health condition such as knee weakness, dizziness, or fainting from low blood sugar or dehydration. In just a matter of days, OWCP offers a formal development letter which states your Continuation of Pay (COP) has been frozen, and your claim may be denied altogether. If you’re facing an idiopathic controversion from USPS management, read on to find out how our best injured OWCP attorneys can help protect your benefits during this difficult time.

Are you looking for the best OWCP federal workers’ compensation attorney for your USPS heat injury claim? Please call the experienced federal employee attorneys at McCready Law NOW at (314) 481-63338 to learn more about how we can help you fight management controversion and secure your FECA benefits. The experienced injured federal worker attorneys at McCready Law bring to the table combined experience spanning over 90 years, during which we have helped postal workers across the country navigate the Department of Labor and OWCP bureaucracy with speed, efficiency, and reliability.

To date, we have recovered over $500 million for our clients, and our deep understanding of USPS operational tactics and OWCP adjudication standards places us at a level that is unmatched in federal workers’ compensation law. We have nationwide reach, handling cases on an agreed-upon, transparent basis, and your first consultation is 100% FREE.

Regardless of where your postal route is located in the United States, McCready Law can assist with your OWCP claim from start to finish, connecting you with qualified physicians who understand federal causality and fighting aggressive agency controversies so you can focus on recovering. Need to speak to someone regarding protecting your continuation of pay and securing claim acceptance? Call us NOW at (314) 481-63338 to learn more about our legal services – our intake team is standing by to route your call to one of our experienced attorneys.

Overcoming the Idiopathic Fall Defense as an OWCP Last-Mile Injured Postal Worker

As per the regulations laid out by FECA, the Department of Labor draws a clear distinction between an “unexplained fall” and a legitimately “idiopathic fall”. Postal management is usually fond of taking advantage of your lack of knowledge of these differences in order to unfairly deny you your COP and other benefits after getting injured.

According to a precedent filed with the Employees’ Compensation Appeals Board (ECAB), if an instrumentality at your workplace led to your fall or worsened your injury, then you are perfectly within your legal rights to ask that your claim be compensated.

Here’s how our firm advocates for you when it comes to the idiopathic fall denial:

1. Enforcing the ECAB Unexplained Fall Presumption – When you’re unable to precisely identify the cause of your slip and fall, the knee-jerk reaction of management is to label this as “idiopathic”. However, we force the OWCP claims examiner to adhere to ECAB case law, which states that should any fall with an unknown cause occur during work hours and on agency premises, then the fall and consequent injuries are compensable.
2. Invocation of the Zone of Danger and Special Hazard Exception- Even if an employee has a dizzy spell or feels suddenly tired, the claim is still compensable, as we can argue that the workplace activity or condition increased the severity of the impact. Therefore, by proving that you struck a steel dock plate or a guardrail as you were offloading a large package, we can definitively demonstrate that the physical geometry of the loading dock was what caused your workplace injury, and not the underlying dizziness or fatigue.

Best Injured USPS Last-Mile Carriers Attorneys – Call Us Today!

These are just two strategies our best injured OWCP worker lawyers are ready to employ to ensure that your Continuation of Pay benefits are never halted, and that you receive the full scope of your benefits as an injured last-mile postal worker. Don’t let the nebulous explanations and cop-outs of management deny your claim for benefits after giving the USPS the best years of your life; call us NOW at (314) 481-63338 to speak with one of our best USPS injured worker attorneys to learn more about your legal options for justice and compensation. Remember, we take on claimants countrywide, and there is no legal obligation. Thanks for choosing us, and we look forward to helping you.