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Denied

The Board denied the Veteran's claim for an earlier effective date for the grant of service connection for bilateral hearing loss, as the evidence showed that the final disallowance was in January 1991 and the date of receipt of the application to reopen was September 30, 2005.

The deciding factor: The Board found that the only applicable effective date for award of service connection for the Veteran's bilateral hearing loss is the date of receipt of the application to reopen, which was September 30, 2005.

Claimed conditions
bilateral hearing loss
How they argued it
Direct service connection
Exposure basis
None
Rating assigned
None in this decision
Decision date
March 12, 2009
Citation
0909253

Veterans Law Judge

ROBERT E. SULLIVAN

Decisions by this judge: 493 · Granted: 28% (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 0909253.

What this means for you

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