The Board remands the claims for service connection for a stiff heart muscle causing shortness of breath and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) to ensure compliance with its previous remand directives.
The deciding factor: The opinions provided in the October 2024, April 2025, and June 2025 VA examinations failed to address or note consideration of the evidence as directed by the Board's prior remand directives.
- Claimed conditions
- chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) with difficulty breathing, stiff heart muscle causing shortness of breath
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 25, 2025
- Citation
- 25014326
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 25014326.
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 has denied the Veteran's claims for service connection for stiff heart muscle causing shortness of breath and COPD, finding that there is no evidence to support a causal relationship between these conditions and his military service.
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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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