The appeal for an increased rating for bilateral hearing loss was withdrawn, and the Veteran is not entitled to an earlier effective date of service connection for left ear hearing loss.
The deciding factor: The Veteran withdrew his appeal for an increased rating for bilateral hearing loss during a Board hearing. For the claim of an earlier effective date of service connection for left ear hearing loss, no new evidence was received within one year of the final decision in 2013, and thus the effective date remains January 10, 2018.
- Claimed conditions
- Bilateral hearing loss, Right leg disability (claimed as right lower extremity radiculopathy), Left leg disability (claimed as left lower extremity radiculopathy)
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 3, 2023
- Citation
- 23000158
What this means for you
A dismissal means the Board did not decide the issue on its merits — usually because it was withdrawn or had become moot. It says more about procedure than about whether a claim like this can win.
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 bilateral hearing loss, as there was no evidence of a current disability in the right ear and insufficient evidence to establish a nexus between the left ear hearing loss and service.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the matter for a medical clarification regarding whether the Veteran's service-connected epilepsy has aggravated his bilateral hearing loss.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claim for service connection for bilateral hearing loss to obtain an addendum opinion addressing the Veteran's lay statements regarding in-service acoustic trauma and a rocket blast injury.
- Partly granted
The Board granted an effective date of May 17, 2019, for a 70 percent disability rating for PTSD but denied earlier effective dates for service connection for bilateral hearing loss and tinnitus.
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