Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the Veteran's claims for service connection for left elbow, wrist, and little finger disabilities to correct pre-decisional duty to assist errors.
The deciding factor: The AOJ failed to obtain fully adequate medical opinions due to missing STRs and misidentified in-service hospital records requests.
- Claimed conditions
- left elbow disability, to include degenerative arthritis, left wrist disability, to include residuals of compound fracture, degenerative arthritis, and radial subluxation of the first carpometacarpal (CMC) joint, disability of the left little finger, to include residuals of distal interphalangeal (DIP) and proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint amputation
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 12, 2025
- Citation
- A25098246
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