The Veteran's claim for service connection was pending at the time of his death, but the appellant did not file a timely claim for accrued benefits within one year of the Veteran’s death. The appellant's application for VA burial benefits cannot serve as a timely claim for accrued benefits.
The deciding factor: The appellant filed her claim for accrued benefits more than one year after the Veteran's death and an application for VA burial benefits cannot be used to infer a claim for accrued benefits.
- Claimed conditions
- cancer of the spine, lung, prostate, brain
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- April 8, 2019
- Citation
- 19126942
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,890 · Granted: 32% (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 19126942.
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Granted
The Veteran's seizures are granted as secondary to the service-connected scar tissue from a 1969 head surgery.
- Granted
The Veteran was granted compensation under 38 U.S.C. 1151 for trauma to his prostate, urethra, bladder and erectile dysfunction caused by a foley catheter being accidentally pulled out during back surgery performed by VA in March 2019.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the claims for service connection due to insufficient examination reports and missing records. The Veteran's prostate condition is related to his in-service injury, but the examiner did not have access to all relevant medical records. The psychiatric claim requires a second opportunity for an examination as the Veteran may have missed the first one due to lack of communication.
- Denied
The Veteran's cause of death was not related to his military service, and he did not meet the criteria for DIC under 38 U.S.C. § 1318.
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