The Board has remanded the Veteran's claims for service connection for degenerative disc disease of the lower back and left eye blindness due to inadequate compliance with prior remand instructions.
The deciding factor: The VA examinations did not address the Veteran's lay contentions regarding her in-service symptoms and current disabilities, nor did they consider all pertinent evidence.
- Claimed conditions
- Degenerative disc disease (DDD) of the lower back, Left eye blindness
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- October 8, 2020
- Citation
- 20065535
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,614 · Granted: 35% (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 20065535.
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 Veteran's claims for service connection and compensation under 38 U.S.C. section 1151 have been REMANDED due to the need for further development of evidence.
- Denied
The Veteran's left eye blindness, resulting from surgery performed by VA in October 2008, was not caused by any fault on the part of VA. The Board denied compensation under 38 U.S.C. § 1151.
- Granted
The Board has granted service connection for bilateral hearing loss and tinnitus, finding that the Veteran's current conditions are related to his exposure to acoustic trauma during service. Service connection for left eye blindness was denied as it is not rated higher than 30 percent due to anatomical presence of the eye.
- Denied
The Veteran's claims of service connection for PTSD and left eye blindness were denied in an April 2002 Board decision. No new and material evidence has been received to reopen these claims.
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