The veteran's claim for service connection is being remanded due to the unavailability of his active duty medical records and conflicting opinions regarding the etiology of his pulmonary disability and degenerative joint disease of the lumbar spine. The case will be reviewed again after further examination and development.
The deciding factor: Further examination and development are needed as the veteran's service medical records are unavailable, leading to conflicting opinions on the etiology of his conditions.
- Claimed conditions
- pulmonary disability, degenerative joint disease of the lumbar spine
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- July 27, 2006
- Citation
- 0622175
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,377 · 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 0622175.
What this means for you
A remand is not a loss. The Board sent the case back for more development — often a new exam or missing records — before making a final decision. Many remands later end in a grant, and the decision spells out exactly what the Board wanted to see.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Granted
The Board has determined that the Veteran's lumbar spine arthritis is aggravated by his service-connected bilateral knee disabilities, and thus grants service connection for this condition.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the case due to incomplete development of records and will provide a supplemental statement of the case if necessary.
- Granted
The Veteran's low back disability was rated at 40% prior to September 28, 2018. From that date, the rating was increased to 50%. The earlier effective date for TDIU is denied.
- Denied
The Veteran's appeal for a higher level of SMC was denied as he does not meet the criteria for any additional levels of SMC based on his service-connected disabilities.
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