The Board denied service connection for right and left knee disabilities, finding that the Veteran's current knee conditions are not related to his service-connected lumbar spine osteoarthritis.,Service connection was also denied for COPD, with the Board concluding that it is not related to service.
The deciding factor: The VA examinations did not find a medical nexus between the Veteran’s current knee disabilities and his service-connected lumbar spine disability. The examiner opined that the major etiology of the Veteran's knee osteoarthritis was obesity and age, rather than his service-connected lumbar spine disability.
- Claimed conditions
- Left Knee Disability, Respiratory Disability (COPD), Right Knee Disability
- How they argued it
- Secondary to another service-connected condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- December 19, 2019
- Citation
- 19195443
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,569 · 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 19195443.
What this means for you
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Denied
The Veteran's service-connected knee disabilities are rated at 10% each, and the Board finds that higher ratings are not warranted based on the evidence of record.
- Denied
The Board has determined that the Veteran's bilateral knee disabilities are not related to his active service, and thus denied both claims for service connection.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for service connection of a right knee disability, finding that there is no evidence to support an etiological relationship between his current condition and his military service.
- Denied
The Veteran's left knee disability is currently rated at 30 percent, and the Board finds no evidence of clear and unmistakable error in assigning an effective date of June 19, 2002.
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