The Board finds the veteran's claim plausible due to his treatment for a head injury prior to service. A VA examination is needed to determine if the current neurological disorder clearly and unmistakably preexisted service or is related to service.
The deciding factor: The examiner must determine whether the veteran's current neurological disorder is etiologically related to service, considering its potential preexistence in service.
- Claimed conditions
- residuals of a head injury, to include headaches
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- May 13, 2003
- Citation
- 0308969
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,776 · Granted: 24% (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 0308969.
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.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the Veteran's claims for service connection for a lumbar spine disability with radiculopathy, left shoulder condition, residuals of a head injury, hypertension, and an acquired psychiatric disorder due to insufficient medical evidence linking these conditions to his military service.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Veteran's service connection claims for various conditions are remanded due to the unavailability of his service department records and the need to attempt to corroborate the stressful events claimed by the Veteran.
- Denied
The Board has determined that the Veteran's current bilateral hearing loss disability is not related to service, as there was no in-service noise exposure and no chronicity of symptoms within one year of separation from service. The other conditions were also not found to be related to service.
- Dismissed
The Veteran withdrew his appeal for all issues on April 27, 2010.
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