The Veteran's request to reopen a previously denied claim for service connection for gastrointestinal disability is granted. Service connection for gastrointestinal disability is denied.
The deciding factor: The preponderance of the evidence does not establish that diverticulitis began during active service or is otherwise related to an in-service injury, event, or disease.
- Claimed conditions
- Gastrointestinal disability, Diverticulitis
- How they argued it
- Reopened with new and material evidence
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- October 22, 2020
- Citation
- 20068439
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,341 · Granted: 33% (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 20068439.
What this means for you
A grant means the Board agreed the veteran was entitled to the benefit. Decisions like this show the kind of evidence and arguments that tend to succeed for claims like it.
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 claim for service connection for GERD is being remanded due to the need for additional medical opinions and correction of duty to assist errors.
- Granted
The Board has granted the Veteran's claim for service connection for a gastrointestinal condition, to include GERD as secondary to his service-connected PTSD with alcohol use disorder. The evidence is in approximate balance concerning whether the Veteran's gastrointestinal condition is caused or aggravated by his service-connected PTSD.
- Denied
Entitlement to a compensable evaluation for allergic rhinitis was denied.,Service connection for diverticulitis was denied as the evidence did not support its onset during service or its relation to an in-service injury or disease.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has decided to remand the case due to errors in the duty to assist and insufficient opinions regarding service connection for a gastrointestinal disability. The Veteran's symptoms include epigastric burning, regurgitation, nausea without vomiting, persistently recurrent epigastric distress, reflux, substernal pain, sleep disturbance caused by esophageal reflux, diarrhea, dysphagia, Barrett's esophagus, and esophagitis.
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