The Board denied an initial evaluation higher than 10 percent for right pneumothorax and left empyema, finding that the veteran's disability met criteria warranting a 10 percent rating.
The deciding factor: The VA medical examination results showed FEV-1 of 81%, FEV-1/FVC ratio of 72%, and DLCO(SB) of 68% which warranted a disability rating of no more than 10 percent under the general rating formula for restrictive lung diseases.
- Claimed conditions
- right pneumothorax, left empyema
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- 10%
- Decision date
- March 22, 2004
- Citation
- 0407345
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,458 · 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 0407345.
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Granted
The Board granted a 10 percent disability rating based on multiple noncompensable service-connected disabilities for the period on appeal prior to May 31, 2016.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for an initial rating in excess of 0 percent for service-connected headaches and dismissed the appeal regarding the propriety of a proposed reduction in the evaluation of right pneumothorax from 20 percent to 0 percent.
- Denied
The Board denied the veteran's claims for an earlier effective date for service connection for right and left pneumothorax, finding that his correspondence did not constitute a valid Notice of Disagreement.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Veteran's claims for higher ratings and a specific disability rating are being remanded due to inconsistencies in the VA examination findings.
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