The Board has decided to remand the claim for service connection for scleroderma due to inadequate examination and opinions. The Veteran's contentions include direct service connection, presumptive service connection based on Persian Gulf War veterans (MUCMI), and chronic disease presumption.
The deciding factor: The decision is remanded because the VA examination did not adequately address the Veteran’s various theories of service connection and exposure claims.
- Claimed conditions
- Scleroderma
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 10, 2020
- Citation
- 20002435
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,454 · Granted: 23% (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 20002435.
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.
- Denied
The Veteran's death was caused by acute/chronic respiratory failure secondary to scleroderma, a condition not service-connected. The Board denied service connection for the cause of death due to lack of evidence linking the disability to military service.
- Partly granted
The Board granted service connection for Parkinson's disease, to include as secondary to herbicide exposure. The claim for scleroderma was remanded.
- Partly granted
The Board granted service connection for hypertension, renal cyst, renal toxicity, and coronary artery disease (CAD) as secondary to the service-connected conditions. Scleroderma was denied.
- Granted
The Veteran's disability rating for scleroderma with polyarthralgia and Raynaud's phenomenon was reduced from 60% to 40%, but the Board has restored the original 60% rating due to severe exacerbations.
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