The veteran's appeal is being remanded for additional examination and development of his claim, including a review of the service and post-service medical records to determine the nature and extent of any residuals from an inservice left hand injury.
The deciding factor: The case was remanded due to conflicting radiological findings regarding arthritis in the left fifth finger and the need for further examination to assess the current status of the veteran's condition.
- Claimed conditions
- fracture of the left fifth finger
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 20, 2006
- Citation
- 0635986
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,293 · 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 0635986.
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.
- Denied
The Veteran's service-connected residuals of a fracture of the left fifth finger are not rated higher than noncompensable, and his hearing loss is also not rated higher than noncompensable. The Board finds that neither condition warrants a compensable evaluation.
- Remanded (sent back)
The case is remanded for a VA medical examination to determine the nature, severity, and etiology of residuals from an inservice fracture of the left fifth finger. The examiner must provide opinions regarding whether any symptoms are related to the inservice injury and if there are radiological findings of arthritis in the left fifth finger.
- Denied
The veteran's death was not caused by a service-connected disability, and the Board denied the claim for service connection for the cause of the veteran's death.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the issues of service connection for various claimed disabilities due to insufficient evidence or further development is needed.
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