FBI worker cited seizures and no transit options – the panel still said no
A federal court has drawn a clear line for HR: trouble getting to work is not the same as being unable to do the job.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled on May 27, 2026 that a former FBI clerical employee cannot claim federal disability retirement benefits on the basis that seizures left her unable to drive to her office. The decision sharpens a distinction that matters for any HR team handling disability claims: the law looks at whether an employee can perform the role, not whether the employee can reach the building.
Barbara Lee Chafin joined the FBI in November 1987 as a GS-03 Operational Support Technician in Miramar, Florida. The job involved clerical, assistant, or technician work, and required her to be on site. She drove in from her home in Goulds, Florida.
In December 2016, the agency found she had engaged in workplace misconduct. She was removed in July 2018.
In April 2019, Chafin applied for Federal Employees' Retirement System (FERS) disability retirement benefits, asking that they be backdated to February 2018. Her argument, supported by statements from her medical provider and supervisor, was that she had suffered numerous seizures. Those seizures meant she could not drive, public transportation did not serve her route, and ride-sharing was prohibitively expensive. Without a way to get to Miramar, she said, she could not work.
The Office of Personnel Management saw it differently. It denied the application, finding that Chafin had not shown her seizures kept her from rendering useful and efficient service in her role – the test built into 5 U.S.C. § 8451(a)(1)(B). The Merit Systems Protection Board upheld that view. So did the Federal Circuit.
The appeal turned on statutory text. Section 8451(a)(1)(B) sets the disability standard by asking whether the employee can render useful and efficient service in her position. The next provision, § 8451(a)(2)(A), addresses reassignment – what happens when an otherwise disabled employee turns down an offer to move to another job. That provision requires that any reassignment be within the employee's commuting area.
The court treated that difference as meaningful. Congress wrote commuting into one section and left it out of the other. Under a well-worn canon of statutory interpretation, that kind of disparity is read as deliberate. Commuting ability is part of the reassignment test. It is not part of the threshold question of whether someone is disabled.
Writing for the panel, Judge Lourie said the court was sympathetic to Chafin's situation but bound by the statute, which does not allow for accommodation based on an inability to commute due to economic circumstances or proximity to the job.
Chafin also pointed to her supervisor's certification on the Agency Certification of Reassignment and Accommodation Efforts form. The supervisor had indicated that the medical evidence showed accommodation was not possible given the severity of her condition and the physical requirements of the position. The Federal Circuit declined to weigh that evidence, noting that 5 U.S.C. § 8461(d) bars it from reviewing OPM's factual findings on physical disability.
For HR leaders, the ruling lands in familiar territory. The same logic runs through ADA accommodation work in the private sector: the analysis starts with the essential functions of the position, and getting to and from the job site is generally treated as a separate issue, not a medical one. Federal-sector HR teams handling FERS applications now have a clear Federal Circuit signal that commuting barriers – even genuine, medically rooted ones – belong in the reassignment conversation, not the disability one.
The decision is final. The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board.
