The Board has remanded the claims for service connection due to missing portions of the Veteran's claims file and unclear information regarding his exposure to herbicide agents. The location of the Veteran’s ship while stationed is also needed, as are addendum opinions on the relationship between the Veteran's injuries and his disabilities.
The deciding factor: The Board cannot make a fully-informed decision without knowing the location of the Veteran's ship and additional information regarding his exposure to herbicide agents. The addendum opinion is required to address whether the Veteran’s injuries were related to his in-service assault based on an MRI indicating older injuries at the time of diagnosis.
- Claimed conditions
- left acoustic neuroma, glaucoma of the left eye, squamous cell carcinoma, bilateral shoulder disability, disability manifested by bilateral muscle damage, diagnosed as trapezius strains
- How they argued it
- Not specified
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- October 4, 2019
- Citation
- 19176821
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,350 · Granted: 26% (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 19176821.
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 denied the Veteran's claims for service connection for a bilateral shoulder disability and increased ratings for her bilateral knee disabilities, finding no evidence of in-service injury or disease related to these conditions.
- Granted
The Veteran's squamous cell carcinoma is granted as secondary to his service-connected eczema and psoriasis. The initial compensable evaluation for toenail psoriasis remains denied.
- Dismissed
The Board has dismissed the Veteran's appeals for service connection of squamous cell carcinoma, basal cell carcinoma, and actinic keratosis as the appeal is considered duplicative of a previous decision.
- Partly granted
The Board has determined that the severance of service connection for neoplasm hard and soft tissue of the mouth was improper, as there is conflicting medical evidence regarding the cause of the condition. The Veteran's conditions are related to his active duty service.
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