The Board remands the claims for service connection for the cause of the Veteran's death and entitlement to Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) under 38 U.S.C. § 1318 due to duty to assist errors, including the need for a medical opinion regarding the etiology of the Veteran's causes of death.
The deciding factor: Remand is necessary to correct duty to assist errors, specifically the lack of private medical records and a medical opinion regarding the Veteran's cause of death.
- Claimed conditions
- Nonalcoholic cirrhosis, Hepatic encephalopathy, Type II diabetes, Gonorrhea, Urosepsis, Iron deficiency anemia, Dementia, Atrial fibrillation
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 18, 2025
- Citation
- A25100226
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 828 · Granted: 42% (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 A25100226.
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 Veteran's claims for service connection for various conditions, including a left wrist fracture, bilateral hearing loss, Type II diabetes, bilateral glaucoma, OSA, cervical disc herniation, and other musculoskeletal issues are denied.,Service connection is not established for any of the claimed conditions.
- Granted
The Veteran's PTSD with cognitive impairment or dementia was rated at 50 percent from July 11, 2005 to March 4, 2021. From March 4, 2021, the Veteran's condition was rated at 100 percent.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the case due to insufficient medical opinions regarding whether the Veteran's service-connected anxiety disorder and exposures at Camp LeJeune contributed to his cause of death. The VA must obtain an addendum opinion addressing these issues.
- Denied
The Board has determined that the Veteran's death was not caused by any service-connected disability, and thus denied his claim for service connection for cause of death.
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