Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claim for a new VA medical opinion to correct pre-decisional errors related to the service connection of sleep apnea as secondary to major depressive disorder with anxious distress and lumbar spine strain, with obesity as an intermediate step.
The deciding factor: The AOJ failed in its duty to assist by providing an inadequate medical opinion that did not address both causation and aggravation, and also failed to identify the issue of service connection for OSA as secondary to service-connected depression and lumbar spine strain with obesity as an intermediate step.
- Claimed conditions
- sleep apnea
- How they argued it
- Secondary to another service-connected condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- December 1, 2025
- Citation
- A25102915
Want to see how appeals like this one tend to go? Appeals like mine
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