The Board remands the Veteran's claim for an initial disability rating in excess of 10 percent for right ankle disability due to duty-to-assist errors, including inadequate VA examination and missing treatment records.
The deciding factor: Remand is necessary to ensure that the AOJ fulfills its duty to assist the Veteran in developing the record and correcting pre-decisional duty-to-assist errors.
- Claimed conditions
- right ankle lateral collateral ligament sprain
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- July 8, 2025
- Citation
- A25058455
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,614 · 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 A25058455.
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.
- Dismissed
The Board has dismissed the appeals for all issues related to service connection and rating decisions from February 2017, May 2019, and November 2019 due to untimely Notice of Disagreement filings.
- Denied
The Board denied earlier effective dates for service connection for various wrist and elbow conditions, finding that the Veteran did not submit the correct form within one year of receiving a decision.
- Denied
The Board denied the appellant's claims for effective dates prior to June 10, 2022, for service connection of various conditions. The appeal is also remanded for further action on some issues.
- Granted
The Board has determined that the Veteran's right ankle lateral collateral ligament sprain is related to his active service and grants entitlement to service connection.
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