The Veteran's claim for service connection for diabetes mellitus, type I is reopened and remanded due to new evidence of possible herbicide exposure. The Board will provide a VA examination to determine if the current diagnosis is related to in-service events or aggravation by other conditions.
The deciding factor: New evidence of possible herbicide exposure has been submitted that relates to an unestablished fact necessary to substantiate the claim for service connection for diabetes mellitus, type I.
- Claimed conditions
- diabetes mellitus, type I
- How they argued it
- Reopened with new and material evidence
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 7, 2020
- Citation
- 20000653
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 3,038 · 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 20000653.
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.
- Partly granted
The Board denied service connection for diabetes mellitus, type I and type II based on clear and unmistakable error (CUE), but found no CUE in the September 2009 rating decision. The Veteran's claim for presumptive service connection due to herbicide exposure was not addressed.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has decided that the VA did not properly consider whether the Veteran's diabetes was caused or aggravated by his service-connected PTSD, and thus remands the case for further examination to address these issues.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claims of service connection for diabetes mellitus, type I; muscle and joint pains with spasms; chronic fatigue syndrome; and cardiovascular disorder. The Board found that there was no current disability related to these conditions, nor did they find a causal relationship between any service-connected disabilities and these conditions.
- Granted
The Board has granted service connection for diabetes mellitus, type I and bilateral lower extremity diabetic neuropathy as secondary to the Veteran's service-connected diabetes mellitus, type I.
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