The Veteran's son, the appellant, seeks service connection for his father's cause of death due to soft-tissue sarcoma, which he claims was caused by exposure to Agent Orange. The Board finds that presumptive service connection has not been established but will remand for further development including obtaining missing service treatment records.
The deciding factor: The Veteran did not have a record of exposure to herbicide agents during his active duty and the STRs are incomplete, thus presumptive service connection cannot be granted. However, direct service connection may still be considered.
- Claimed conditions
- soft-tissue sarcoma
- How they argued it
- Not specified
- Exposure basis
- Agent Orange / herbicides
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- February 7, 2019
- Citation
- 19109459
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 439 · Granted: 19% (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 19109459.
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.
- Granted
The Veteran's request for readjudication of a prior denial of service connection for soft-tissue sarcoma is granted. The claim for service connection for residuals of soft-tissue sarcoma is remanded.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has determined that the cause of the Veteran's death is remanded for further development, including obtaining additional VA medical opinions to determine if his death was related to service.
- Denied
The Board denied service connection for ischemic heart disease and soft-tissue sarcoma, finding no evidence of herbicide exposure during service and insufficient medical evidence to link the conditions to service.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the Veteran's claims for ischemic heart disease and soft-tissue sarcoma due to in-service herbicide agent exposure, as further research is needed to verify his claimed exposures.
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