The Board denied the appellant's claim for recognition as the veteran's surviving spouse, finding that her marriage to the veteran was not valid under VA law due to it occurring less than one year before his death and producing no children.
The deciding factor: VA laws prohibit award of death benefits where the marriage is less than one year prior to a veteran's death and no children were born either prior to or of the marriage, regardless of whether the marriage was valid under state law.
- Claimed conditions
- Not specified in this decision
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 6, 2005
- Citation
- 0500335
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 175 · Granted: 26% (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 0500335.
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- Granted
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