The Board has determined that the VA Regional Office (RO) needs to provide additional development and notification in order to properly adjudicate the veteran's claim for service connection of a low back disorder.
The deciding factor: The VCAA requires proper notice, assistance, and compliance with duty-to-assist requirements. The RO failed to meet these obligations in this case.
- Claimed conditions
- L1-2 and L3-4 anterior disc herniation, L4-5 disc bulge
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- February 10, 2004
- Citation
- 0403781
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,440 · Granted: 30% (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 0403781.
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.
- Granted
The Veteran's service-connected lumbosacral spine disability, including spondylosis, lumbar spine degenerative disc disease (DDD), facet joint arthritis, and L4-5 disc bulge, is now rated at 40 percent effective June 11, 2019.
- Denied
The Veteran's back disability was rated at 20 percent from August 18, 2009 to January 30, 2013 and since April 1, 2013. The Board denied an increased rating for the period of August 18, 2009 to January 30, 2013 and since April 1, 2013.
- Denied
The Board has denied the veteran's claim for an evaluation in excess of 40 percent for his service-connected low back strain, with L4-5 disc bulge.
- Denied
The Board denied the veteran's claims for increased ratings for his service-connected lumbar myositis, psychoneurosis and conversion hysteria, residuals of shrapnel wounds of the left thigh and pelvis with retained foreign bodies and scars, and residuals of shell fragment wounds of the right thigh and left leg. The veteran was also denied entitlement to a total disability rating based on individual unemployability due to service-connected disabilities.
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