The Board denied service connection for lumbar and thoracic spine disabilities as they were not related to the Veteran's active duty service.
The deciding factor: There is no evidence of a chronic disability during or immediately following service, nor is there any competent medical opinion linking the current disabilities to an in-service event. The degenerative changes are more likely due to aging rather than trauma from accidents.
- Claimed conditions
- Lumbar spine disability, Thoracic spine disability
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- March 24, 2009
- Citation
- 0910984
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,500 · 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 0910984.
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
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The Veteran's claims for service connection for headaches and lumbar spine disability, as well as left and right lower extremity radiculopathy, were denied. The effective dates for these conditions are also denied.
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- Granted
The Board has granted service connection for Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) with agoraphobia with panic attacks as directly related to military service.
- Granted
The Veteran's service connection claim for obstructive sleep apnea is granted, and his increased rating claim for lumbar spine disability is also granted to a 40 percent rating.
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