The Veteran's service-connected back disability has rendered him unable to secure or follow a substantially gainful occupation since August 26, 2009. The Board finds the evidence is in balance regarding this issue and grants a TDIU on an extraschedular basis.
The deciding factor: The medical record supports the Veteran's statements regarding pain and physical limitations due to his service-connected back disability, which precludes him from maintaining substantially gainful employment.
- Claimed conditions
- DJD and DDD of the spine, chronic sinusitis, migraine headaches, gastroesophageal reflux disease with sliding hiatal hernia, back scar
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- 40%
- Decision date
- January 3, 2023
- Citation
- 23000090
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 899 · Granted: 45% (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 23000090.
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 Board has remanded the claims for bilateral hearing loss, migraine headaches, and PTSD due to additional development of records and examination.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the cases for additional development due to incomplete medical records and insufficient opinions regarding the relationship between service, including a stick injury in England, and current left eye disability (including amblyopia and cataracts) as well as migraine headaches.
- Denied
The Board has denied service connection for chronic rhinitis, chronic sinusitis, and chronic fatigue syndrome as there is no evidence of a current disability in the record.
- Granted
The Veteran's migraine headaches are productive of very frequent, completely prostrating and prolonged attacks capable of producing severe economic inadaptability. The Board has granted a 50 percent disability rating for the Veteran's service-connected migraine headaches.
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