The Board has remanded the Veteran's claims for service connection for right knee disability and arthritis of the bilateral lower extremities due to in-service combat.
The deciding factor: The evidence does not contain sufficient competent medical evidence to decide the claim, as no VA examination was provided. The Veteran must provide an opinion regarding the etiology of the claimed disabilities.
- Claimed conditions
- Right knee disability, Arthritis of the left lower extremity, Arthritis of the right lower extremity
- How they argued it
- Presumptive (no nexus needed)
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 13, 2020
- Citation
- 20073169
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.
- Partly granted
The Board granted service connection for chronic headaches, CFS, dermatosis, bilateral RLS, a lumbar spine disability, and sleep apnea but denied a compensable evaluation for allergic rhinitis.
- Partly granted
The Board denied the claims for an initial compensable rating for left ear sensorineural hearing loss, service connection for a right ear hearing loss disability, and a left eye disorder. However, it granted service connection for a back disability and radiculopathy of both lower extremities as secondary to the back disability.
- Denied
The Board denied increased ratings for various disabilities and granted earlier effective dates for service connection of scars, but denied an earlier effective date for individual unemployability.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the Veteran's claims for service connection for left and right knee disabilities to correct pre-decisional duty to assist errors.
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