The Board has decided that the effective date for DIC benefits should be changed from July 1, 2016 to July 19, 1992, the date of the Veteran's death. However, VA needs to obtain SSA records related to the appellant's claim for widow benefits based on her husband's death.
The deciding factor: VA needs to obtain SSA records regarding the appellant’s award of SSA widow benefits based on the death of the Veteran.
- Claimed conditions
- Malignant mesothelioma
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 21, 2019
- Citation
- 19188193
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,977 · Granted: 27% (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 19188193.
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.
- Granted
The Veteran's death was due to service-connected malignant mesothelioma, and the appellant is entitled to an effective date of June 1, 2015 for DIC benefits.
- Denied
The Veteran's death in 1975 was not related to a service-connected disability or any other way. The Board found that the evidence did not support a finding of service connection for the cause of death.
- Denied
The Board found that the Veteran's cause of death, malignant mesothelioma, was not caused by a service-connected disability and denied the claim for service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death.
- Denied
The Board denied the veteran's claims for increased ratings for his service-connected lumbar myositis, psychoneurosis and conversion hysteria, residuals of shrapnel wounds of the left thigh and pelvis with retained foreign bodies and scars, and residuals of shell fragment wounds of the right thigh and left leg. The veteran was also denied entitlement to a total disability rating based on individual unemployability due to service-connected disabilities.
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