The Board remands the claim for a new medical opinion to address the relationship between the Veteran's CODs and in-service asbestos exposure.
The deciding factor: The December 2024 VA medical opinion is inadequate, as it did not provide a clear rationale connecting the Veteran's CODs to his in-service asbestos exposure.
- Claimed conditions
- acute liver failure, metastatic liver cancer
- How they argued it
- Not specified
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 6, 2025
- Citation
- A25096612
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 835 · Granted: 22% (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 A25096612.
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 Board has remanded the Veteran's claims for service connection due to insufficient medical opinions and potential errors in legal standards. The claims will be reconsidered with new opinions addressing the etiology of the Veteran's colon cancer, including its relationship to his military service.
- Granted
The Board has granted the Veteran's claim for service connection for cause of death, finding that his metastatic liver cancer was at least as likely as not related to exposure to herbicides during active service. The decision is based on a private medical opinion supporting this conclusion.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has decided to remand the case due to a duty to assist error regarding service connection for cause of death. An addendum opinion is needed to determine if the Veteran's cancer is related to in-service herbicide exposure.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claims for service connection for colon cancer and metastatic liver cancer due to an inadequate medical opinion regarding the Veteran's exposure to herbicide agents during his active service in Vietnam.
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