The Board denied service connection for a bilateral knee disability, bilateral foot disability, and bilateral elbow disability as the evidence did not support that these conditions were incurred in or aggravated by active military service.
The deciding factor: The veteran's degenerative joint disease of the knees was not shown to have developed during service, nor within one year after discharge. The other claimed disabilities were also not shown to be related to service and were attributed to known clinical diagnoses rather than undiagnosed illnesses.
- Claimed conditions
- Degenerative joint disease (DJD) of the knees, Joint pain in the feet, Joint pain in the elbows
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- February 6, 2009
- Citation
- 0904458
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 3,038 · Granted: 30% (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 0904458.
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the case due to inadequate medical opinions and failure to comply with previous remand directives. The Veteran's character of discharge from military service is being reviewed, but no service connection claims are decided as the appeal does not involve a determination on service connection.
- Granted
The Board has determined that the veteran's left shoulder disorder warrants a compensable evaluation of 10 percent, while his knee DJD is rated at its maximum allowable under current regulations.
- 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.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for an initial evaluation in excess of 10 percent for his service-connected coronary artery disease, finding that the evidence did not support a higher rating based on the severity of his condition.
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