The Board has remanded the cases due to insufficient rationale in a previous VA medical opinion regarding the cause of death, and will further adjudicate these matters once the cause of death claim is resolved.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner's opinions are lacking sufficient rationale for their conclusions.
- Claimed conditions
- pancreatitis, sepsis
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- March 19, 2019
- Citation
- 19119748
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,726 · 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 19119748.
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.
- Denied
The Board denied service connection for asthma, COPD, pancreatitis, stroke, and left arm weakness (claimed as secondary to stroke) based on the presumption of exposure to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune. The evidence did not support a finding that these conditions were related to service or due to in-service exposure.
- Denied
The Veteran's cause of death, kidney cancer, is not service-connected. The Board found that the Veteran's cause of death was not related to his military service or a service-connected disability.
- Granted
The Veteran's cause of death, metastatic lung cancer, was found to be related to service and caused or contributed substantially to the Veteran's death. The Board granted entitlement to service connection for the Veteran's cause of death.
- Granted
The Veteran's service connection for pancreatitis was granted with a 30% rating, effective November 15, 2023. The Veteran also received service connection for migraines and left ankle sprain with tendinitis, both rated at 30% and 20%, respectively, effective the same date.
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