The Veteran's major depression is granted as secondary to his service-connected HIV. The effective date for the grant of service connection for HIV is remanded.
The deciding factor: The Board found that the evidence was at least evenly balanced as to whether the Veteran’s major depression is caused by his service-connected HIV, and thus granted service connection on a secondary basis.
- Claimed conditions
- Major Depression, Human Immunodeficiency Virus Disease (HIV)
- How they argued it
- Secondary to another service-connected condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 5, 2019
- Citation
- 19183801
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.
- Granted
The Board granted an initial evaluation of 70 percent for the Veteran's acquired psychiatric disability, to include PTSD, anxiety disorder, and major depression.
- Granted
The Board granted service connection for an acquired psychiatric disability, to include PTSD, resolving reasonable doubt in the Veteran's favor based on a corroborated in-service stressor event.
- Partly granted
The Board granted an effective date of December 20, 2007 for the grant of service connection for posttraumatic stress disorder and increased ratings to 70% from March 27, 2020 to June 5, 2020, and 100% from June 5, 2020. The claim for a total disability rating based on individual unemployability was denied.
- Dismissed
The appeal was dismissed due to a procedural defect in the Veteran's January 2022 VA Form 10182, which resulted from a prohibited concurrent election under VA claims processing rules.
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