The Board has determined that the Veteran's TMJ began during active service and granted service connection for this condition.
The deciding factor: The VA physician provided a nexus opinion linking the Veteran’s TMJ to an in-service injury, which was found to be in relative equipoise with other possible causes.
- Claimed conditions
- Temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMJ)
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- August 12, 2019
- Citation
- 19162072
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,828 · 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 19162072.
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 denied service connection for TMJ and remanded the claims of increased rating for major depressive disorder and service connection for PTSD.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has decided that the Veteran's TMJ and Erectile Dysfunction claims are remanded for further development due to duty-to-assist errors.
- Granted
The Veteran's rating for TMJ was reduced from 40 percent to 30 percent in March 2016, and then further reduced to 10 percent in November 2022. The appeal challenges the propriety of these reductions, with the Board finding that a reduction is warranted as there has not been sustained improvement in the Veteran's TMJ under ordinary conditions of life and work.
- Denied
The Board found no clear and unmistakable error in the February 2000 rating decision that granted a 10 percent initial rating for temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMJ).
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