The Board denied the veteran's claims for increased ratings and effective dates for his lower back disability, dysthymia, obesity, and sinus bradycardia. The veteran was not granted a higher rating or an earlier effective date under any of these claims.
The deciding factor: The medical evidence did not support the need for higher ratings based on the severity of the veteran's conditions as per the current VA rating criteria.
- Claimed conditions
- lower back disability, dysthymia, obesity, sinus bradycardia
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- 20%
- Decision date
- August 14, 2006
- Citation
- 0624565
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,020 · Granted: 19% (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 0624565.
What this means for you
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Granted
The Veteran's diabetes mellitus, type II, is granted on a secondary basis with obesity serving as an intermediate step due to service-connected low back disability, sciatica, and right shoulder disabilities.
- Remanded (sent back)
The DIC claim is denied because the Veteran was not rated totally disabled for a continuous period of at least 10 years immediately preceding his death. The service connection issue is remanded due to duty to assist error.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has determined that new and relevant evidence has been received to reconsider the Veteran's claims for service connection for left hip, left knee, right hip, and lower back disabilities. The claim for left hip disability is remanded due to a pre-decisional duty to assist error.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the claims for service connection for left knee and lower back disabilities due to incomplete information about the Veteran's duty status during his periods of active service in the National Guard and Reserves.
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