The Board has remanded the case due to insufficient medical opinions regarding whether the Veteran's gallbladder disease is related to her service, including her deployment in the Southwest Asia theater of operations.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner did not adequately address the lay statements indicating stomach pain and other gastrointestinal symptoms during service.
- Claimed conditions
- gallbladder disease, gallstones
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 18, 2020
- Citation
- 20073848
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 882 · Granted: 17% (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 20073848.
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 service connection for residuals of gallbladder removal and gallstones, finding no evidence linking these conditions to the Veteran's active service or presumed exposure to herbicide agents.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Veteran's claims for service connection on multiple conditions have been remanded due to the submission of new evidence after a prior denial. The Board finds that VA examinations and medical opinions are necessary to properly determine entitlement to service connection.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Veteran's tinnitus is currently rated at the maximum schedular rating of 10 percent and a higher rating is denied.,The Veteran's PTSD is remanded for further development to determine if it warrants an increased rating.
- Dismissed
The Board dismissed the appeals for service connection of restless leg syndrome, migraines, erectile dysfunction, gallstones, and allergic rhinitis as secondary to service-connected PTSD due to concurrent elections.
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