The veteran's cause of death was not granted an effective date prior to January 31, 2002 due to the lack of a valid claim for service connection for the cause of death within one year from his death in 1984.
The deciding factor: The appellant did not file a valid claim for service connection for the cause of death until January 2002, which is the earliest date on record and thus cannot be earlier than that.
- Claimed conditions
- cause of death: lung cancer
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- July 26, 2006
- Citation
- 0622163
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,464 · Granted: 14% (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 0622163.
What this means for you
A denial is a starting point, not the end of the road. You can see why this claim fell short — and, if you are still inside the one-year window, the appeal lanes that may remain open to you.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Denied
The Board denied an earlier effective date for the grant of service connection for cause of death due to lung cancer, finding that the appellant did not meet the requirements under Nehmer stipulations and that the award was based on a liberalizing law.
- Remanded (sent back)
The case is being remanded to the RO for a recalculated dose estimate of ionizing radiation exposure and a new medical opinion regarding its potential impact on the veteran's lung cancer. The claim will then be reviewed again.
- Denied
The Board denied the claim for an earlier effective date for dependency and indemnity compensation benefits, finding that the application was received more than a year after the veteran's death.
- 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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