The Board has granted the Veteran's claim for an earlier effective date of July 14, 2005 for service connection for mild recurrent major depressive disorder and persistent insomnia disorder. The decision is based on a statement from the Veteran in July 2005 indicating he was entitled to service connection for depression as secondary to his service-connected left knee disability.
The deciding factor: The Board found that the Veteran's July 2005 statement can be reasonably construed as a claim of entitlement to service connection for depression as secondary to his service-connected left knee condition, and this claim was not acted upon before an August 2020 VA examiner reported on the Veteran's psychiatric symptoms related to his left knee disability.
- Claimed conditions
- mild recurrent major depressive disorder, persistent insomnia disorder
- How they argued it
- Secondary to another service-connected condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- October 30, 2024
- Citation
- A24070071
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,874 · Granted: 33% (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 A24070071.
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 remands the claim for service connection for an acquired psychiatric disorder, to include PTSD, unspecified trauma and stressor related disorder, and mild recurrent major depressive disorder, due to a pre-decisional duty-to-assist error.
- Granted
The Board granted service connection for an acquired psychiatric disorder, to include persistent insomnia disorder.
- Granted
The Board granted service connection for persistent depressive disorder, persistent insomnia disorder, and a recurrent headache disability to include migraine.
- Denied
The Veteran's claim for a disability rating in excess of 50 percent for persistent insomnia disorder with other specified depressive disorder and other specified anxiety disorder with panic attacks was denied. The Board found that the Veteran does not meet the criteria for a higher rating due to occupational and social impairment, but generally functioning satisfactorily.
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