The Board has remanded the case to obtain additional medical records and arrange for appropriate examinations. The issues of service connection for residuals of a spinal injury, defective hearing, and whether new and material evidence has been submitted to reopen the claim of entitlement to service connection for residuals of a head injury are being addressed.
The deciding factor: The Board found that there were procedural issues related to the submission of medical records and examinations needed to determine the etiology of the veteran's disabilities.
- Claimed conditions
- residuals of a spinal injury, defective hearing
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- March 13, 2003
- Citation
- 0304681
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,642 · Granted: 19% (granted or partly granted, in the vetted decisions on this site)
Judge attribution: 2025 complete; earlier years partial.
This is a plain-language summary generated by AI from a public Board of Veterans’ Appeals decision. It can contain errors — always verify against the original. Look up the original decision on VA.gov (opens in a new tab) using citation 0304681.
What this means for you
A remand is not a loss. The Board sent the case back for more development — often a new exam or missing records — before making a final decision. Many remands later end in a grant, and the decision spells out exactly what the Board wanted to see.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for a TDIU on an extraschedular basis prior to December 6, 2012 due to insufficient evidence showing that his service-connected disabilities prevented him from securing or following substantially gainful employment.
- Dismissed
The Veteran's motion to vacate a 1979 Board decision regarding defective hearing and tinnitus was dismissed due to the Veteran's death.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has decided that the VA needs to obtain additional medical records and provide a new opinion regarding the Veteran's spinal injury residuals. The matter will be returned for further development.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the claims for defective hearing and hypertension due to additional VA medical records being added to the file after a previous SSOC. The Veteran's claim for increased rating for defective hearing prior to July 28, 2020 is remanded for a retrospective medical opinion. The claim for service connection for hypertension is also remanded as there was not substantial compliance with the August 2019 remand directive.
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