The Board remands the claims for service connection for degenerative arthritis of the cervical spine, thoracolumbar spine, and left upper extremity radiculopathy due to a pre-decisional duty to assist error.
The deciding factor: No adequate medical opinion has been obtained regarding any of the disabilities on appeal, as the VA examiner's sole rationale was the absence of contemporaneous evidence in the service treatment records.
- Claimed conditions
- Degenerative arthritis of the cervical spine (neck), Degenerative arthritis of the thoracolumbar spine (back), Radiculopathy, left upper extremity, upper radicular nerve (LUE radiculopathy)
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- April 8, 2025
- Citation
- A25032436
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 878 · Granted: 46% (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 A25032436.
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 neck condition and sinusitis are granted as service-connected.
- Granted
The Board has granted an initial disability rating of 20 percent for degenerative arthritis of the cervical spine and a separate 10 percent rating for degenerative arthritis of the lumbar spine, effective from the date of the grant of service connection.
- 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.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for an initial evaluation in excess of 10 percent for his service-connected coronary artery disease, finding that the evidence did not support a higher rating based on the severity of his condition.
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