The Veteran's left eye disability, including blindness of the left eye, was not caused by VA carelessness, negligence, or similar fault. The additional vision loss is attributed to his pre-existing conditions and subsequent surgeries.
The deciding factor: VA did not cause the Veteran's additional vision loss due to a lack of foreseeability in the post-operative positioning issues and no evidence linking the disability to VA treatment.
- Claimed conditions
- Left Eye Detached Retina, Eales Disease, Retinal Vasculitis, Tractional Retinal Detachment
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- February 6, 2019
- Citation
- 19109360
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,913 · 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 19109360.
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Granted
The Veteran's left eye detached retina was granted a rating of 30 percent prior to July 14, 2011. A higher rating is denied.
- Granted
The Board finds that the Veteran's loss of sight in his left eye was caused by a delay in treatment for a detached retina, resulting in total blindness. The Board concludes that VA did not exercise the degree of care expected from a reasonable health care provider and thus negligence on VA's part is established.
- Denied
The Board denied the veteran's claim for disability benefits pursuant to 38 U.S.C.A. § 1151 due to the natural progression of his detached left retina, which occurred after he delayed seeking medical attention and underwent multiple surgeries at VA facilities in 1993.
- 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.
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