The Board remands the claim for a liver disability to correct pre-decisional duty to assist errors, including providing an examination and medical opinion regarding the etiology of the Veteran's liver disabilities.
The deciding factor: Remand is necessary due to insufficient evidence addressing whether the Veteran's service-connected diabetes mellitus, Type II (DM II) caused or aggravated his current liver disability or whether obesity due to DM II served as the intermediate step between DM II and his liver disability. Additionally, a VA examination under the PACT Act is required.
- Claimed conditions
- fatty liver disease, other chronic nonalcoholic liver disease, cirrhosis - non-alcoholic
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- Camp Lejeune water
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- April 22, 2025
- Citation
- A25036933
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 785 · Granted: 27% (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 A25036933.
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.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Veteran's claims for service connection are remanded due to incomplete etiology opinions regarding secondary service connection.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has decided to remand the case due to a duty-to-assist error that occurred prior to the rating decision on appeal. The Veteran's fatty liver disease, post-liver transplant, is being remanded for an addendum opinion addressing the etiology of his liver disorders before and after his liver transplant.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Veteran's appeal for service connection for paresthesias of the hands, hypothyroidism, fibromyalgia, and fatty liver disease is remanded due to a failure to provide an examination regarding the nature and etiology of these conditions.
- Granted
The Veteran's fatty liver disease was granted a 20 percent rating from April 27, 2018 to May 14, 2020. The Board found that the Veteran's symptoms of daily fatigue, malaise, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, constipation, and upper quadrant pain warranted this rating.
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