The Board denied service connection for bilateral hearing loss disability and PTSD. The veteran's claim of service connection for bilateral hearing loss was reopened, but the evidence did not support a grant of service connection.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner concluded that military noise exposure was unlikely to be the cause of the veteran's hearing loss, given her normal separation examination results and lack of documented in-service complaints or findings. The examiner also noted that the sounds she described were more likely due to psychiatric and pharmacological factors rather than noise-induced tinnitus.
- Claimed conditions
- bilateral hearing loss disability
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 7, 2005
- Citation
- 0500539
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,480 · 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 0500539.
What this means for you
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What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has granted service connection for tinnitus but has remanded the issue of service connection for bilateral hearing loss disability due to inadequate examination and reasoning.
- Denied
The Board has denied the Veteran's claims for service connection for bilateral hearing loss disability and tinnitus, finding that there is no credible evidence linking these conditions to his active service.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the Veteran's claims for bilateral hearing loss disability and tinnitus due to errors in providing notice of his right to a pre-decisional hearing.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has granted service connection for tinnitus but has remanded the claim of service connection for bilateral hearing loss disability due to a pre-decisional duty to assist error.
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