The Board denied service connection for a back disability as secondary to service-connected neck disability and denied service connection for a heart disability due to herbicide exposure. The Veteran's current diagnoses were not related to his service-connected conditions.
The deciding factor: The VA medical opinions found no causal relationship between the Veteran's diagnosed lower back disability and his service-connected neck disability, and concluded that the Veteran's heart disability was not caused by or aggravated by his in-service herbicide exposure.
- Claimed conditions
- Degenerative arthritis of the lumbar spine, Heart disability
- How they argued it
- Not specified
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 6, 2024
- Citation
- A24072432
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 3,319 · 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 A24072432.
What this means for you
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Denied
The Board denied service connection for a heart disability, finding that the Veteran's current heart diagnoses are not related to his military service.
- Granted
The Veteran's claim for increased ratings for degenerative arthritis of the cervical spine and lumbar spine was granted with effective dates of May 13, 2019.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has denied service connection for a right shoulder disability and remanded the case for further action on heart disability. The decision regarding right shoulder disability is that it was not incurred in or aggravated by service.
- Denied
The Veteran's claim for an effective date prior to March 2, 2015, for TDIU was denied as the evidence did not show actual worsening within one year prior to his March 2, 2015, claim.
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