CLAIMS FOR MONEY AWARDS DUE NOW
3/26/2018 The EEOC entered a final decision finding that the U.S. Postal Service discriminated against the Class of approximately 130,000 USPS employees when it subjected them to the National Reassessment Process (NRP) between May 5, 2006 and July 1, 2011. The USPS employees who were reviewed under the NRP had suffered workplace injuries, and were working under restrictions in limited duty, light duty, or rehabilitation positions. The final decision found that the NRP intentionally discriminated against these USPS employees by targeting them with disfavorable treatment, canceling accommodated jobs, creating a hostile work environment, improperly using their private medical information, and forcing some to resign.
Class Member claims for individual money awards are due now. The deadline for an individual Class Member to submit a claim for money damages and other relief is 30 days from when the individual receives a written notice from the USPS about the case. To be safe, attorneys for the Class have recommended that Class Members submit a claim by April 12, 2018. If a Class Member fails to submit a timely claim, the Class Member may lose the ability to seek any individual relief in the case.
Directions for submitting claims, a sample suggested Claim Form, and more information about the case is available at NRPclassaction.com.
While it is unknown how many Class Members will file claims, Rochester, NY attorney Michael Lingle of Thomas & Solomon indicated that the law firms representing the Class have been contacted by thousands of USPS employees during the past decade in which this case has been pending. The case was first filed by Sandra McConnell, a Rochester, NY mail carrier who had her USPS position taken away from her due to the NRP.
Jeremy Wright of Kator, Parks, Weiser & Harris, in Washington, DC, noted the tremendous achievement accomplished by the Class. “The decision in this case delivers a stern warning to every employer to respect the rights of workers with disabilities, and to never treat them as second-class.”
Attorneys for the Class stress the importance of Class Members submitting claims for monetary and other relief as soon as possible. Class attorneys are available to assist Class Members in submitting claims, and the attorneys have mailed out sample suggested claim forms to tens of thousands of Class Members across the country.
The Class is represented by Thomas & Solomon LLP, and Kator, Parks, Weiser & Harris, PLLC. The name of the case is McConnell v. U.S. Postal Service, EEOC Case No. 520-2010-00280X; Agency No. 4B-140-0062-06. The final appeal decision in the case was issued on March 9, 2018, and is available at NRPclassaction.com.
The EEOC has issued its final decision denying the Postal Service’s request for reconsideration and allowing Class Members to file a written claim seeking money and other relief. Click here for information about how to file a claim and a suggested claim form to use.
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More info:
Important Information About How To Submit a Claim and the Deadline to Make a Claim
You must submit a claim form in order to receive any money or other relief in this case. Our office has sent out suggested claim forms to class members which you can use to submit your claim. The Postal Service has also sent out a claim form, but even if you have submitted the form from the Postal Service, you can still send in our suggested form as well. Class Members who use the suggested claim form must fill out the form completely and mail it to the Postal Service at the following address: NEEOISO c/o MSI, P.O. Box 3787, Greenwood Village, CO 80155. Please also send a copy to Thomas & Solomon LLP at 693 East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14607 and keep a copy for your records.
You must submit your claim form within 30 days of your receipt of the notice from the Postal Service about this case. Our suggestion is that you mail your claim form no later than April 12, 2018.
Class members who use the suggested claim form are also indicating that they would like Thomas & Solomon LLP and Kator, Parks, Weiser & Harris, PLLC to represent them in making their claim for damages. A retainer letter included in the information packet explains the terms of representation. Class Members who do not want representation can indicate that on the claim form.
The Postal Service will have ninety (90) days after receiving a claim from a Class Member to decide whether to accept the claim. Class Members who have chosen to have Thomas & Solomon LLP and Kator, Parks, Weiser & Harris, PLLC represent them will receive assistance in challenging any claims that are denied.
Click here for additional information about the claims process, including the information packet materials mailed to Class Members.
You can read the EEOC’s final decision by clicking here.
Sandra McConnell vs USPS
A class action complaint for injured on duty postal employees was certified by an EEOC Administrative Judge (AJ) on May 30,2008.
In the case of Sandra McConnell, et al. v. United States Postal Service an AJ decision certified the following class:
All permanent rehabilitation employees and limited duty employees at the U.S. Postal Service who have been subjected to the National Reassessment Process (NRP) from May 5, 2006 to present, allegedly in violation of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The AJ certification decision recited evidence that the goal of NRP was to assign work to employees who had an approved compensable injury as determined by the Department of Labor.
Class members argued one or more of the following complaints:
1. NRP is a systemic attempt to abolish reasonable accommodations agency wide.
2. The agency’s alleged facially non-discriminatory policy is being applied in a discriminatory manner.
3. The process constitutes denial(s) of reasonable accommodation.
4. The process constitutes discrimination based on disability (physical/mental).
5. The process constitutes unlawful harassment and hostile work environment based on disability (physical/mental).
6. The agency unlawfully modified or terminated each person’s approved disability accommodations without cause.
7. The agency made its reassignment decisions improperly by, inter alia, failing to engage in the interactive process.
8. The agency applied the program discriminatorily both with regard to each individual and how the process was applied.
9. The agency’s actions are retaliatory for the individual’s protected conduct, in reporting injuries, filing worker’s compensation, and/or prior EEO activity.
10. The agency’s conduct violated its procedures and OWCP’s regulations and blatant failure to follow the agency’s own regulations is presumed to be motivated by retaliation and/or discrimination.
USPS failed again in attempt to halt McConnell class action EEO case
Reminder: Postal Employees can be members of both Pittman and McConnell class action EEOC cases
The NRP never ended. I know of quite a few and I’m sure there is a lot more employees that suffered the same fate outside of this timeline. They are still tossing IOD employees to the curb today so a monetary payout is obviously no threat or skin off their backs. The only thing that ended was the silly acronym use.
How right you are. I know someone who is part of this group.
He is shedding no tears for USPS.
I was an employee that was sent home for 3 years because of NRP. I was already on lite duty but the P.O. said there was no available job for me w/my restrictions due to an OJI. Now the qualifying years is 2006-2011, what if I wasn’t brought back to work until 2013? Do I just lose out on those years??
I was forced to resign in 2013 after an OJI… and a ton of harassment. I just received a letter yesterday. I was told by supervision if I could not lift 70 pounds I was worthless and unfit to work. I live with chronic neck pain and can not lift over 30. I went back to school (in debt) but am barely making ends meet….. Just thinking about the treatment I received during and after OJI has given me anxiety…
What is Settlement amount?
Their is no settlement amount.
Each claim will stand on its own merit.
Law firm is telling each person too ask for a minimum of $300,000.
What is the Settlement amount.
The toolbags will continue to screw people over and
no one will be held accountable. Too many good employees
were screwed over just for reasons beyond their control.
No one wants to be injured. Pain and suffering are not
something employees look forward to. Employees put their
health and well being on the line every day. The toolbags in charge
should be fired for the additional pain and suffering they placed
on injured workers. The toolbags should be ashamed. Fire them all.
I resent the people whom state most of these OWCP cases are fake. Their injuries are with them 24/7, not just when they are on the clock. I knew a carrier whom suffered a severe back injury. Crying, he told me he couldn’t even put up his own Christmas lights, play ball with his son, engage in intercourse with his wife, etc. His quality of life was greatly diminished and he was on hardcore pain meds. He, and others like him, have my full support. I am grateful it isn’t me. I hope these effected carriers clean the USPS out.
Postal management that was involved will be severely punished. They will be promoted to higher level pay grade and be given prick pills so they can remain on top.
Awesome!!! Finally proven
Wow 80% fakers ? Dont fall or have an accident through no fault of your own! Then have an injury and pain that has changed your life forever. We will see how your body holds up.you must be young..but. i wish you the best.please dont judge others.
liar, liar, pants on fire. 80% are fakers. PO didn’t want to pay into State unemployment programs……now they have this mess on their hands…..stupid is is as stupid does!
They literally forced me out of my job in 2013 and still refuse to pay me my correct pension
Lied about monies deposited into my acct
The stress of all of this has cause a reoccurrence of my cancer
Thank You God i get to hopefully witness this deposit
This company will try and say the claim forms are lost. They will have a separate tray for all the return barcode envelopes waiting to be mishandled so the class loses its deadlines and damages awarded. Send it FedEx or ups for a better chance.
Now watch they will somehow lose all of our claims . My mail has been stolen repeatedly while employed there with OIG findings and no justice . Yeah come get me you snakes
My new address and s 316 Anvil Draw Place Rock Hill SC 29706
I was put off work for two years because of an OJI. Then brought back at limited duty, not am forced to work outside my permanent restrictions in order to get available overtime.
Today I received notification for statement of claim. It did not have a date on it, however stated I submit statement of claim by 30 days from the notice of this claim.
There are no dates on this notification other than the ones with regarding which guiled lines to follow when assessing a claim????
That is suppose to say refile.
If we already filed a claim several years ago, do we need to refuel?
There were some instances in my district of workers with some sort of restrictions getting thoroughly harassed and even attempts by management to try to force the physicians of these workers to release private medical information without informing the employee of their doing so, which, whether the employee was told or not, is illegal.
Most workers came by their health restrictions doing the very work the USPS demands of all of us, and turns a blind and indifferent eye toward those who are injured or slowly develop health problems as a by product of the work they do. As a city letter carrier, my office experienced knee problems, shoulder issues, back problems and a lot of hernias. I was in fact a member of our local “hernia” club, and have had two surgeries for a hiatal hernia (along the bottom of the rib cage and next to the diaphragm) and the classic inguinal, down in the nether regions, where no more explanation is offered. I had shoulder surgery too, and while I’ve been retired now for about a year and a half I have a bad back that is slowly but surely getting worse and more sciatica is present. Some days it’s all I can do to walk without a painful limp.
Now add to that employees who get horrible illnesses and diseases, or are injured in vehicle or other accidents. A very good friend of mine died recently of bladder cancer, another friend died of ALS. This is life and I will give credit to my local management – they have been supportive as possible toward those with restrictions or on the job acquired limited duty assignments. Light duty people as a rule do not get to work accommodating assignments, because management is not required to provide them.
But it’s still so revelatory of postal management to try to harass and intimidate injured and ill employees to leave, and fire some of them. While we must admit that there are lots of OWCP fraud committed by craft and managers, there is no excuse for properly qualified employees who provide all the medical information requested and have very valid cases to be treated like shit.
The USPS can and is at the highest levels especially thoughtless and cruel. They are so far removed from the day to day operations, sitting in their AC cooled offices in summer and nice warm offices in winter, never visiting a workroom floor unless absolutely necessary, and automatically assuming all craft employees are liars and dishonest. This case should be ample proof of that. Yet, nobody in Washington pays a bit of attention to this flagrant breaking of federal laws. Republicans hate federal workers worse than anybody because they still have unions, so they aren’t about to do a damn thing about workplace abuse and violence, or other illegal behavior that is a day to day operation for USPS management. I hope management has to fork over a lot of money to those they’ve screwed over and that it comes out of bonus accounts.
Thank God something positive happened for someone. Having worked to serve and
protect the public. I never thought that the one I would have to protect was myself.
My personal case was so bad that OPM gave disability but made me testify to social
security.
Was an employee that was on limited duty. Tjis was also approved by the department of labor my last name is Williams
What else is new with the repressive Postal Service?Back in the 1990’s and early 2000’s the Postal Service had a early out and started bringing false,bogus, charges to the senior people to get them out on removals instead of giving the senior people an opportunity for an early out. At that time there were over 7,000 senior people being removed throughout the country, saving the Post Service 25,000 per person. Real slimeball management that has never changed!!!
Wow . Amazed at how many besides myself have been done so dirty. There is no one to trust. The intimidation is the worst part. I was a rural carrier that had full thickness tear in rotator cuff and a ruptured bicep. Had surgery in Feb. 2012 and was back at my job WITHOUT assistance after 6 mos. Supervisor did not want me curtailing bulk mail to make my trays of mail lighter . If we had 3 sets of boxholders I was expected to take them all. I had weight limitations of 20 lb. and no overhead casing mail, etc. OWCP doctors reviews stated I did not need to be delivering mail. Claims person in downtown office argued with each decision and I was forced to continue my job. May 2013 I went to another orthopedic dr. who said I needed surgery again on same shoulder. I came back after 5 months WITH MORE RESTRICTIONS and they let me work inside answering the phone that rang constantly tracking packages, etc. Clerks union rep didn’t like it and after a year they sent me home and put me back on work comp. I also had to sign over my route . I had been full time almost 20 years. I was in a very busy office and I stayed busy . I wasn’t getting paid looking at magazines all day. Now I have lost all those years of TSP contributions and no social security wages. I am almost 62 now. What should I do since my claim was in 2012?