The Board has decided to remand the case due to concerns about the adequacy of the July 2016 VA medical opinion and the need for a new examination by an appropriate expert. The Veteran's claim will be reviewed again with these considerations in mind.
The deciding factor: The decision is being remanded because the current medical opinion does not adequately address informed consent and foreseeability under 38 U.S.C. § 1151, which are critical to determining whether VA care caused the Veteran's additional disability or death.
- Claimed conditions
- collapsed right lung, paralyzed right diaphragm
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 23, 2020
- Citation
- 20005337
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,858 · Granted: 24% (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 20005337.
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 has granted service connection for the Veteran's paralyzed right diaphragm as secondary to his service-connected fracture of cervical vertebra (C-7) with intervertebral disc syndrome and degenerative arthritis and foraminal stenosis, after finding that there is at least equipoise evidence supporting this claim.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the case for further development, including obtaining an addendum medical opinion to determine if VA's heart surgery in March 2014 caused additional disability resulting from phrenic nerve injury and whether such disability was due to negligence or lack of informed consent.
- Denied
The Veteran's claims for diabetes mellitus, kidney disorder, heart disability, respiratory disability, thyroid disability, paralyzed right diaphragm, left toe fungus, and right toe fungus were denied as they are not related to service.,There was no evidence of herbicide exposure or asbestos exposure in the Veteran's service records.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has decided to remand the case for further development, including verifying whether the Veteran's cardiac surgeon was a VA employee and obtaining an addendum medical opinion regarding any additional pneumothorax or pleural effusion disability due to fault on VA's part.
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