The Veteran's claim for service connection for diabetes mellitus has been withdrawn. His skin disorder claim is reopened, but his heart murmur and hypertension claims are denied.,His right foot disability claim is remanded due to insufficient evidence of a current disability related to service or secondary to a service-connected condition. His skin disorder claim (presumed due to exposure to smoke and burning oil from refineries in Southwest Asia) is also remanded for further examination.
The deciding factor: The Veteran withdrew his diabetes mellitus claim, leaving the remaining issues open.,New evidence has been received that relates to previously unestablished facts necessary to substantiate the skin disorder claim. The heart murmur and hypertension claims are denied due to insufficient evidence of a current disability related to service or secondary to a service-connected condition.
- Claimed conditions
- diabetes mellitus, heart murmur, hypertension, right foot disability, skin disorder, skin disorder (presumed)
- How they argued it
- Not specified
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- December 26, 2019
- Citation
- 19196209
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,350 · 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 19196209.
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.
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- Denied
The Veteran's claim for service connection for hypertension and increased rating for anxiety disorder have been denied. The Board found that there is no evidence of a current disability meeting the criteria for hypertension, and the Veteran's anxiety disorder does not meet the criteria for a higher rating.
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