The Board has denied service connection for a lumbar spine disability and a cervical spine disability, both claimed as back pain and neck pain respectively. The evidence does not support a finding of secondary service connection due to the Veteran's service-connected right shoulder disability.,The Board also found that there is no direct service connection for these conditions.
The deciding factor: The medical evidence did not establish a link between the lumbar spine and cervical spine disabilities and the service-connected right shoulder disability. The VA examiners provided opinions indicating that the Veteran's current spinal conditions are either unrelated to his in-service complaints or due to natural progression of age-related degenerative changes.
- Claimed conditions
- cervical spine disability, lumbar spine disability
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- December 10, 2019
- Citation
- 19192728
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,812 · Granted: 30% (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 19192728.
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Denied
The Board denied the claims of service connection for cervical spine and skin rash disabilities, finding that there is no evidence linking these conditions to active military service.
- Granted
The Board has granted service connection for a lumbar spine disability, left lower extremity radiculopathy, and right lower extremity radiculopathy as secondary to the Veteran's service-connected lumbar spine disability.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has decided to remand the claims for miscarriage, cervical spine disability, lumbar spine disability, and right elbow disability due to insufficient examination opinions and incomplete service history verification.
- Dismissed
The Board has dismissed the Veteran's claims for service connection for left knee disability, right knee disability, lumbar spine disability, and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) as these issues have been addressed in a separate docket.
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