The Board remands the claims for service connection for lumbar spine, cervical spine, left hip, and right hip disorders to obtain additional medical opinions that comply with previous remand instructions.
The deciding factor: The examiners failed to substantially comply with the Board's May 2024 directives by not applying the required 'but-for' analysis for determining secondary service connection.
- Claimed conditions
- lumbar spine disorder, to include arthritis, cervical spine disorder, to include arthritis, left hip disorder, to include arthritis, right hip disorder, to include arthritis
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- March 21, 2025
- Citation
- 25003868
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 831 · Granted: 48% (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 25003868.
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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- Denied
The Veteran's service-connected musculoligamentous strain, right knee, is currently rated at 10 percent and the Board finds that a higher rating is not warranted.
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