The Board has remanded the claims for service connection for right and left knee disorders due to potential issues with the VA examiner's opinion regarding the relationship between the Veteran's current knee conditions and his service-connected lumbar sprain, radiculopathy of the bilateral lower extremities, and left hip bursitis.
The deciding factor: The Board found that the January 2014 VA examination did not address whether the Veteran’s altered gait impacted his bilateral knee disorders or if his right knee disorder is directly related to service.
- Claimed conditions
- Right knee disorder (degenerative joint disease), Left knee disorder (degenerative joint disease)
- How they argued it
- Secondary to another service-connected condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- April 18, 2019
- Citation
- 19129888
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,676 · Granted: 24% (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 19129888.
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 found that the Veteran's left knee disorder, other than residuals of cold injury, was not related to his military service and denied his claim for service connection.
- Denied
The Board denied service connection for an acquired psychiatric disorder, alcoholism, a lung disorder, dental trauma, a right knee disorder, and left ear hearing loss as the evidence did not support a medical nexus between these conditions and the veteran's period of active duty.
- Granted
The Board has granted service connection for a left knee disorder, finding it to be proximately due to the veteran's service-connected residuals of a right ankle fracture. The Board denied service connection for a left shoulder disorder, concluding that there is no evidence of an in-service injury or disease and no current disability related to active service.
- Granted
The Board has determined that the Veteran's headaches are at least as likely as not caused by his service-connected traumatic brain injury, and thus grants service connection for this condition.
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