The Board has remanded the claims for connective tissue disease, loss of vision in the right eye, lupus erythematosus, peripheral neuropathy, and COPD due to missing medical evidence and inadequate opinions regarding service connection.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner failed to provide adequate rationale for their opinions on the relationship between herbicide agent exposure and the Veteran's connective tissue disease, COPD, and peripheral neuropathy.
- Claimed conditions
- connective tissue disease, loss of vision in the right eye, lupus erythematosus, peripheral neuropathy, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 6, 2020
- Citation
- 20071997
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,863 · Granted: 26% (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 20071997.
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.
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- Denied
The Board denied service connection for asthma, COPD, pancreatitis, stroke, and left arm weakness (claimed as secondary to stroke) based on the presumption of exposure to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune. The evidence did not support a finding that these conditions were related to service or due to in-service exposure.
- Dismissed
The appeal seeking readjudication of the previously denied claim for PTSD and multiple other conditions is dismissed due to a procedural defect. The Veteran's authorized representative at the time the appeal was submitted did not have the authority to file the appeal.
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