The Board has decided to remand the Veteran's claims of service connection for a back condition, bilateral hip conditions, and left knee conditions due to his service-connected right knee condition. The reasons include insufficient medical opinions based on lack of contemporaneous records and failure to consider the Veteran's lay statements regarding overcompensating.
The deciding factor: The Board found that the VA examiners' opinions were inadequate as they did not provide sufficient rationale for their conclusions, particularly in relation to the Veteran's lay statements about his symptoms related to his service-connected right knee condition.
- Claimed conditions
- back condition, bilateral hip condition, left knee condition
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 6, 2020
- Citation
- 20072009
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 20072009.
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.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for service connection for a back condition, including degenerative disc disease and scoliosis, due to lack of current disability evidence.
- Dismissed
The Veteran's appeal was dismissed due to their death during the pendency of the appeal.
- Dismissed
The Veteran's appeal for service connection for sleep apnea has been dismissed due to the withdrawal of his request.,Service connection for a back condition is denied as there is no evidence that the condition began during service or is related to an in-service injury, event, or disease.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has decided to remand the case due to predecisional duty-to-assist errors, including inadequate medical opinions and missed VA examinations. The Veteran's claim for service connection for a back condition is being returned to the RO for further action.
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