The Board denied the petition to reopen the claim for service connection for the cause of the Veteran’s death due to lack of new and material evidence, concluding that the appellant's statements do not provide a credible medical opinion linking the Veteran's cause of death to his military service or herbicide exposure.
The deciding factor: The appellant is not competent to render a complex medical opinion regarding the etiology of the Veteran's cause of death which involves an internal physical process extending beyond an immediately observable cause-and-effect relationship.
- Claimed conditions
- cardiac arrest, hypotension, chronic active hepatitis, aplastic anemia, chronic active liver disease
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- February 13, 2019
- Citation
- 19111266
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,011 · Granted: 24% (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 19111266.
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Denied
The Board denied service connection for the cause of death due to lack of evidence showing a link between any service-connected disability and the Veteran's death. The conditions listed on his death certificate were not related to his military service.
- Denied
The Veteran's death due to cardiac arrest and atherosclerotic heart disease was not related or attributable to his military service, thus denying the claim for service connection for cause of death.
- Denied
The Board has determined that the Veteran does not have a current diagnosis for any of the claimed conditions and thus, service connection is denied.
- Granted
The Veteran's ambulance expenses for fainting on March 22, 2022 and cardiac arrest on September 6, 2022 are granted.,VA facilities were not feasibly available during the medical emergencies.
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