The Board has dismissed the appeal due to the death of the appellant, and no effective date or rating adjustments are granted.
The deciding factor: The appellant died during the pendency of the appeal, thus the Board lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate the merits of the case.
- Claimed conditions
- Traumatic brain injury, Scarring from facial shrapnel injuries, Posttraumatic stress disorder, Right leg shell fragment wound, Left leg shell fragment wound, Right eye shell fragment wound, Bilateral hearing loss, Stroke with residual expressive aphasia, Arthritis of each ankle
- How they argued it
- Not specified
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- August 23, 2019
- Citation
- 19165740
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 19165740.
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A dismissal means the Board did not decide the issue on its merits — usually because it was withdrawn or had become moot.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.
- Denied
The Board denied the veteran's claim for service connection for bilateral hearing loss, as there was no evidence of a current disability in the right ear and insufficient evidence to establish a nexus between the left ear hearing loss and service.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the matter for a medical clarification regarding whether the Veteran's service-connected epilepsy has aggravated his bilateral hearing loss.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claim for service connection for bilateral hearing loss to obtain an addendum opinion addressing the Veteran's lay statements regarding in-service acoustic trauma and a rocket blast injury.
- Partly granted
The Board granted an effective date of May 17, 2019, for a 70 percent disability rating for PTSD but denied earlier effective dates for service connection for bilateral hearing loss and tinnitus.
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