The veteran's disabilities do not meet the criteria for a permanent and total disability rating for VA pension purposes, as they are not severe enough to prevent him from maintaining substantially gainful employment.
The deciding factor: The veteran's disabilities, while present, do not result in a combined 100% schedular evaluation or render him unemployable due to his conditions alone.
- Claimed conditions
- alcohol dependence (active and severe), mixed personality disorder with borderline and antisocial aspects, degenerative changes of the lumbosacral spine, cervical spine, bilateral elbows, bilateral ankles, history of hepatitis B
- How they argued it
- Not specified
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- May 21, 2004
- Citation
- 0413173
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,196 · Granted: 17% (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 0413173.
What this means for you
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Dismissed
The appeal for neck pain pinched nerve severe arthritis cervical spine is dismissed as a matter of law. Service connection and increased ratings are granted for major depression, mental disorder anxiety and PTSD, carpal tunnel syndrome (both wrists), and migraine including migraine variants.
- Denied
The Board has denied service connection for the Veteran's low back condition, and remanded the issues of entitlement to service connection for right ankle, left ankle, and right wrist conditions.
- Dismissed
The Veteran's appeals for higher disability ratings and service connection were withdrawn, and the appeal concerning a deferred evaluation for left ear hearing loss was dismissed due to a claims-processing error.
- Granted
The Veteran's service-connected disabilities render him in need of the aid and attendance of another person, leading to a grant of special monthly compensation (SMC) based on aid and attendance.
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