The Veteran's appeals for increased disability rating and service connection have been dismissed due to his death. The Board has no jurisdiction to adjudicate the merits of these claims as he passed away before a decision could be made.
The deciding factor: The Veteran died during the pendency of the appeal, making it impossible to make a decision on the merits.
- Claimed conditions
- inactive pulmonary tuberculosis, restrictive lung disease
- How they argued it
- Not specified
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- May 17, 2019
- Citation
- 19138308
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,874 · Granted: 33% (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 19138308.
What this means for you
A dismissal means the Board did not decide the issue on its merits — usually because it was withdrawn or had become moot. It says more about procedure than about whether a claim like this can win.
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 claim for specially adapted housing is remanded due to a lack of a VA examination, which was a pre-decisional duty to assist error. The Board must now schedule the Veteran for an examination to determine if his service-connected asthma with restrictive lung disease and chronic hypoxic respiratory failure qualifies him for specially adapted housing.
- Dismissed
The appeal for a total disability rating based on individual unemployability (TDIU) is dismissed as moot because the Veteran's service-connected disabilities resulted in a combined schedular evaluation of at least 70% prior to October 15, 2024, and he was able to maintain employment despite his conditions.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has determined that the Veteran's cause of death was not related to his service-connected disabilities and thus denied DIC benefits. The claim for service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death is remanded due to a lack of a medical opinion regarding the etiology.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the case due to inadequate opinion in the July 2024 VA examination, which did not consider the Veteran's lay contentions regarding his symptom onset and failed to provide a 'synergistic' and 'combined effect' analysis of all toxic exposure risk activities.
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