The Board remands the claims for service connection and initial ratings due to a duty to assist error in failing to obtain outstanding VA and private treatment records.
The deciding factor: Remand is required to obtain current medical treatment records that are necessary to determine the current severity of the Veteran's conditions and whether there is a current disability and nexus regarding the service connection claims.
- Claimed conditions
- Recurrent earaches, Bilateral hearing loss, Migraines, Chronic sinusitis, Right shoulder strain, Lumbosacral strain, Chronic constipation, Left knee strain, Right knee strain, Right knee meniscal repair, Bilateral plantar fasciitis, Corns on toes and ingrown toenails
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- May 19, 2025
- Citation
- A25044420
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,249 · Granted: 37% (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 A25044420.
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.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for service connection of a right knee disability, finding that there was no nexus between his current condition and active duty service.
- Granted
The Veteran's claim for a low back disorder was reopened, and his claims for increased ratings of bilateral knee instability were granted. His hearing loss claim was denied.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Veteran's appeals of the initial ratings for his service-connected chronic cough and bilateral hearing loss are remanded due to procedural errors in the evidentiary record.
- Granted
The Veteran's initial evaluation for tension headaches to include migraines is granted, with a rating of 50 percent effective from May 23, 2023.
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