The Board has remanded the claims for accrued benefits and service connection due to a request for substitution of claimant upon death. The issues have not been adjudicated as requests for substitution are pending.
The deciding factor: The appellant's request for substitution is pending, and thus the claims must be remanded until this issue is resolved.
- Claimed conditions
- lumbosacral strain, heart condition (including congestive heart failure, valvular heart disease, and atrial fibrillation), diabetes mellitus, type 2
- How they argued it
- Not specified
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 7, 2020
- Citation
- 20001208
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.
- Granted
The Board granted service connection for lumbosacral strain, finding that the Veteran's low back injury occurred during a period of active duty for training (ADT) and continued therefrom.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claims for service connection for hypertension and diabetes mellitus to obtain further medical opinions regarding their potential relationship to toxic exposures during active service.
- Partly granted
The Board granted a 20 percent rating for right leg sciatica with radiculopathy pain and paresthesia, but denied increased ratings for PTSD, lumbosacral strain, left wrist limitation of motion with ganglion cyst, and service connection for headaches, unspecified. Several issues were remanded.
- Granted
The Veteran is granted a 100 percent rating for valvular heart disease based on MET testing showing that at a workload of 3 METs or less, the condition results in fatigue and breathlessness.
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