The Board has remanded the case due to insufficient evidence regarding whether the Veteran's cause of death, cardiac arrest, was related to his service. The VA examiner is requested to provide an addendum opinion addressing the relevance of shrapnel wounds during service, right coronary artery stenosis, and post-service symptoms.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner needs to assess if there is a link between the Veteran's service (shrapnel wounds, open heart surgery) and his post-service health issues that contributed to his cause of death (cardiac arrest).
- Claimed conditions
- Cardiac arrest, Shrapnel wounds to the chest, Right coronary artery stenosis
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- April 2, 2019
- Citation
- 19123637
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,200 · Granted: 43% (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 19123637.
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 has determined that the Veteran's death was not caused by any service-connected disability, and therefore denied entitlement to service connection for the cause of his death.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the matter to obtain relevant SSA records that could provide information pertinent to the Veteran's appeal.
- Denied
The Board denied the claim for service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death, finding no evidence that a disability incurred in or aggravated by service either caused or contributed substantially to his cardiac arrest.
- Denied
The Board denied service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death on a basis other than the PACT Act, finding that there was no evidence to support exposure to herbicide agents during service in Thailand.
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