The Veteran's death is due to cardiac arrest, septic shock, and necrotizing fasciitis. The Board has remanded the case for further evaluation of hypertension during service as a potential cause of death.
The deciding factor: Hypertension noted during service may have contributed to the Veteran’s causes of death, including cardiac arrest.
- Claimed conditions
- cardiac arrest, septic shock, necrotizing fasciitis
- How they argued it
- Not specified
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 30, 2020
- Citation
- 20008066
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,156 · Granted: 29% (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 20008066.
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.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has determined that a remand is necessary to correct a pre-decisional duty to assist error and obtain a new medical opinion regarding the relationship between the Veteran's service, his death, and any service-connected disabilities.
- Denied
The Board denied service connection for the cause of death due to lack of evidence showing a link between any service-connected disability and the Veteran's death. The conditions listed on his death certificate were not related to his military service.
- Denied
The Veteran's death due to cardiac arrest and atherosclerotic heart disease was not related or attributable to his military service, thus denying the claim for service connection for cause of death.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for service connection for the cause of his death, finding that there was no evidence linking any of the immediate or contributing causes of his death to his period of active duty service. The Board also found that the PACT Act did not apply in this case as the Veteran served prior to the period when herbicide agents were presumed used.
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