The Board remands the claims for service connection for COPD, right and left hand disabilities, and a cervical spine disability due to inadequate VA examinations.
The deciding factor: The August 2024 and November 2024 addendum VA COPD opinions were deemed inadequate as they did not consider all of the Veteran's exposures during military service. The examiner also did not address whether the Veteran's hand and cervical spine disabilities are related to his in-service experiences or caused by a service-connected disability.
- Claimed conditions
- Cervical spine disability, Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Left hand disability, Right hand disability
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- June 16, 2025
- Citation
- 25008006
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 785 · Granted: 34% (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 25008006.
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.
- Denied
The Board denied the claim of service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death, finding that there was no evidence linking his myocardial infarction and COPD to his military service.
- Denied
The Board has denied service connection for bladder cancer, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) as there is no evidence to support a link between these conditions and the Veteran's military service.
- Denied
The Veteran's service-connected cervical spine disability is rated at 20 percent, the maximum rating available under the General Formula for Diseases and Injuries of the Spine. The evidence does not support a higher rating as his range of motion did not meet the criteria for an increased rating.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the claims for service connection for brain cancer, low back disability, and cervical spine disability due to a pre-decisional error in failing to obtain a radiation dose estimate from the Under Secretary for Health. The Veteran's military service aboard USS ENTERPRISE is considered relevant to his exposure to ionizing radiation.
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