The Veteran's cause of death is presumed to be due to herbicide exposure, and service connection for the cause of death is granted under the PACT Act.
The deciding factor: Service connection was granted based on the presumption of herbicide exposure under the PACT Act, which expanded the list of conditions presumptively linked to in-service herbicide exposure to include hypertension.
- Claimed conditions
- Acute pulmonary edema, Cardiac arrhythmia, Hypertensive cardiovascular disease
- How they argued it
- Presumptive (no nexus needed)
- Exposure basis
- Burn pits / airborne hazards
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 9, 2023
- Citation
- 23001208
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,077 · Granted: 25% (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 23001208.
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.
- Denied
The Board denied the claim for service connection for cause of death, finding that there is no evidence to support a causal relationship between the Veteran's military service and his death from gastrointestinal bleeding and hypertensive cardiovascular disease.
- Granted
The Board has granted the appellant's claim for service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death, finding that his opioid use disorder was related to his service-connected disabilities and led to his untimely death.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for service connection for cause of death, finding that there was not sufficient evidence to link his death to his military service or any presumptive conditions related to burn pit exposure. The Board also found no evidence linking his hypertension and cardiovascular disease to his military service.
- Partly granted
The Board granted an initial rating of 70 percent for a psychiatric disability but denied service connection for cardiac arrhythmia, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, dermatosis, and sleep apnea.
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