The Board has decided that the nature of the Veteran's 2002 service is unclear and requires further investigation to determine her periods of active duty, active duty for training, and inactive duty for training. The case is being remanded for this purpose.
The deciding factor: The Board found it unlikely that the Veteran would have been treated by her service department if she was not on some type of duty, especially given the notation at the bottom of a March 2002 record indicating active duty (AD).
- Claimed conditions
- chronic back disability
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- December 12, 2019
- Citation
- 19192651
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 3,217 · Granted: 46% (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 19192651.
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.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the issues of whether there was clear and unmistakable error (CUE) in prior rating decisions that denied service connection for various conditions, as an SOC has not yet been issued.
- Partly granted
The Board denied a higher disability rating for the right ankle and service connection for right ear hearing loss and pulmonary lung disability. All other issues were remanded for further evaluation.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the claim for service connection of chronic back disability due to a duty-to-assist error in the October 2003 VA examination. The Veteran's claim is pending and will be reconsidered with an updated medical opinion addressing causation and aggravation.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has reopened the Veteran's claim for service connection for anemia due to submission of new and relevant evidence. The remaining issues are remanded for further review.
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