The Board remands the claim for service connection for tension headaches to correct pre-decisional duty to assist errors, including an inadequate VA examination and nexus opinions.
The deciding factor: The September 2023 VA examination is found to be based on an inaccurate factual premise, and the medical opinions provided are deemed inadequate due to a lack of thorough rationale and reliance on this inaccurate examination.
- Claimed conditions
- tension headaches (headaches)
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- March 5, 2025
- Citation
- A25020076
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,092 · Granted: 42% (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 A25020076.
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.
- Partly granted
The Board granted service connection for tension headaches and denied service connection for sinusitis, while also denying a compensable disability rating for allergic rhinitis.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the issue of entitlement to an initial disability rating in excess of 30 percent for tension headaches due to a duty to assist error.
- Granted
The Board granted an initial disability rating of 50 percent for tension headaches, effective December 3, 2015.
- Denied
The Board denied the veteran's claims for increased ratings for his service-connected lumbar myositis, psychoneurosis and conversion hysteria, residuals of shrapnel wounds of the left thigh and pelvis with retained foreign bodies and scars, and residuals of shell fragment wounds of the right thigh and left leg. The veteran was also denied entitlement to a total disability rating based on individual unemployability due to service-connected disabilities.
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