The Veteran's claim for an initial rating higher than 10 percent for joint pain and stiffness due to an undiagnosed illness, including whether separate ratings are warranted for bilateral hands and wrists, is remanded due to a duty to assist error. A retrospective VA musculoskeletal assessment is needed.
The deciding factor: The claim requires additional medical evidence regarding the Veteran's disability picture during the relevant period.
- Claimed conditions
- joint pain and stiffness
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 14, 2024
- Citation
- A24074810
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,156 · Granted: 29% (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 A24074810.
What this means for you
A remand is not a loss. The Board sent the case back for more development — often a new exam or missing records — before making a final decision. Many remands later end in a grant, and the decision spells out exactly what the Board wanted to see.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
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The Board has dismissed the appeals for service connection and rating increases as well as a claim for TDIU due to the Veteran's death.
- Denied
The Veteran's appeal is denied as his conditions do not meet the criteria for higher ratings under applicable diagnostic codes.
- Denied
The Board denied service connection for various symptoms, including shortness of breath, nightmares and twitching in sleep, mood swings, cold or night sweats, short term memory loss, headaches, fast heart beat, chest tightness or chest pain, joint pain and stiffness, sporadic pain, burning skin and feet, loss of vision, excessive fatigue, and lightheadedness. The Board found that these conditions were not due to undiagnosed illnesses in service.
- Denied
The Veteran's claim for service connection for PTSD was previously denied due to lack of a verified in-service stressor. New evidence received since the previous denial does not raise a reasonable possibility of substantiating the claim.
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