The Veteran's claim of service connection for a lumbar spine disability is granted. The claims for bilateral hearing loss, tinnitus, headaches, and an acquired psychiatric disorder are remanded.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner found that the current lumbar spine disability was less likely caused by or related to military service due to natural aging and intrinsic disc loading factors.
- Claimed conditions
- lumbar spine (low back)
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- 10%
- Decision date
- April 16, 2019
- Citation
- 19129346
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,911 · Granted: 10% (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 19129346.
What this means for you
A grant means the Board agreed the veteran was entitled to the benefit. Decisions like this show the kind of evidence and arguments that tend to succeed for claims like it.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the claims for service connection for various disabilities, including bilateral knee and neck disabilities, right ankle disability, insomnia (claimed as secondary to psychiatric disorder and tinnitus), low back disability, penile disability, and sciatica. Additional VA examinations are needed to address the etiology of these conditions.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Veteran seeks service connection for low back and neck disabilities. The Board has determined that additional development of the record is needed before proceeding with adjudication.
- Denied
The Board has determined that the submitted evidence does not relate to the unestablished facts necessary to substantiate the claims of service connection for skin, lumbar spine, right knee and left knee disabilities. The Veteran's current disabilities are not related to his service.
- Denied
The Board denied the veteran's claims for increased ratings for his service-connected lumbar myositis, psychoneurosis and conversion hysteria, residuals of shrapnel wounds of the left thigh and pelvis with retained foreign bodies and scars, and residuals of shell fragment wounds of the right thigh and left leg. The veteran was also denied entitlement to a total disability rating based on individual unemployability due to service-connected disabilities.
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