The Board granted service connection for hepatic cirrhosis as secondary to the Veteran's service-connected hepatitis C.
The deciding factor: The Board found that the private examiner's opinion, based on recent test results, was more probative than the VA examiner's conclusion from 21 years prior.
- Claimed conditions
- hepatic cirrhosis
- How they argued it
- Secondary to another service-connected condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- April 2, 2025
- Citation
- A25030445
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 907 · Granted: 35% (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 A25030445.
What this means for you
A grant means the Board agreed the veteran was entitled to the benefit. Decisions like this show the kind of evidence and arguments that tend to succeed for claims like it.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Granted
The Board granted service connection for the Veteran's cause of death, which was due to hepatic cirrhosis that was found to be proximately due to or a result of his service-connected generalized anxiety disorder.
- Denied
The Veteran's death was not service-connected due to the lack of evidence linking his cause of death (hepatic cirrhosis) to service, including exposure to Agent Orange.
- Denied
The Board denied the claim for service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death, finding that there was no evidence of in-service exposure to Agent Orange and that the Veteran's conditions did not have their onset or manifest within one year of discharge. The Board also found that the Veteran's conditions were not otherwise causally related to his military service.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has denied service connection for chronic fatigue syndrome and remanded the issues of esophageal varices, liver disease, hepatic cirrhosis, ascites, portal vein thrombosis, and portal vein hypertension as secondary to service-connected splenectomy. The rating for thoracolumbar spine degenerative joint disease status post left transverse process fracture is also being remanded.
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