The Board remands the claims for service connection for metastatic liver disease and gastric cancer due to a duty to assist error in not obtaining medical records from Darnell Army Medical Center at Fort Hood (DACH) from 1995 to 2020.
The deciding factor: Remand is necessary to ensure compliance with the duty to assist by obtaining relevant medical records from DACH for the period of 1995 to 2020.
- Claimed conditions
- gastric cancer, metastatic liver disease
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- Agent Orange / herbicides
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- April 8, 2025
- Citation
- A25032330
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,287 · Granted: 23% (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 A25032330.
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.
- Granted
The Veteran's cause of death, gastric cancer, is related to his exposure to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune during service. The Board granted service connection for the cause of death based on direct service connection.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the case due to a duty to assist error regarding the relationship between the Veteran's toxic exposure and his cause of death, gastric cancer. The VA clinician provided an inadequate opinion.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has determined that the AOJ failed to identify presumptive toxic exposures, including garrison exposure(s), associated with the Veteran's MOSs or obtain a related medical opinion addressing whether there is a nexus between any such exposure and the Veteran's gastric cancer. The case is being remanded for further development.
- Granted
The Veteran's death from gastric cancer and renal failure was service-connected due to exposure to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune.
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