The Board has remanded the Veteran's claims for further development and examination to determine if his hip, knee, and foot disabilities are related to service or secondary to a service-connected condition.
The deciding factor: The VA examinations were inadequate for rating purposes due to lack of proper rationale and consideration of lay statements.
- Claimed conditions
- left hip osteoarthritis with total hip arthroplasty, right hip osteoarthritis with total hip arthroplasty, degenerative joint disease of the right knee, degenerative joint disease lumbar spine, left foot Achilles tendonitis (heel condition), left flat foot, plantar fasciitis, and hallux valgus
- How they argued it
- Secondary to another service-connected condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- April 15, 2019
- Citation
- 19129070
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,797 · Granted: 20% (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 19129070.
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.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Veteran's claims for increased ratings for his bilateral hips and right knee are being remanded due to duty-to-assist errors. The VA is required to obtain the Veteran's SSA disability benefits records, provide supplemental opinions regarding the ameliorative effects of medication on his hip and knee disabilities, and correct any duty-to-assist errors.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the Veteran's claims for increased ratings for his right and left knee disabilities, as well as his right knee scar. The RO must attempt to obtain all available private treatment records from the Tennessee Orthopedic Clinic.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the case due to duty-to-assist errors, and will need to provide an addendum opinion regarding whether it is at least as likely as not that the Veteran's back disability had its onset during or is otherwise etiologically related to his active service.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Veteran's claims for increased ratings for degenerative joint disease of the left (non-dominant) shoulder, right knee, and left knee are being remanded due to a failure to issue a Supplemental Statement of the Case (SSOC).,The Veteran's claim for TDIU is also being remanded as it was denied in the most recent rating decision without an SSOC having been issued.
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