The Board remands the matter of entitlement to service connection for bilateral flat feet with plantar fasciitis due to a pre-decisional duty to assist error, requiring an addendum medical opinion.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner's negative nexus opinion was found inadequate due to incorrect rationale regarding in-service treatment records.
- Claimed conditions
- bilateral flat feet with plantar fasciitis
- How they argued it
- Aggravation of a pre-existing condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- December 2, 2025
- Citation
- A25103275
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,088 · Granted: 33% (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 A25103275.
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.
- Partly granted
The Board granted service connection for fatigue, chronic headaches, great toenail and toe injury, left foot, and bilateral flat feet with plantar fasciitis after finding new evidence that raised a reasonable possibility of substantiating the claims. Service connection was also granted for lupus, fibromyalgia, vertigo, photophobia, dyspnea, fatigue, Sjogren's syndrome, headache disability (secondary to lupus and fibromyalgia), and an initial effective date of July 29, 2014, for right knee tendonitis with stress fracture of the tibia.
- Dismissed
The Veteran has withdrawn his appeal in its entirety, and the Board finds that the requirements for a proper withdrawal have been satisfied.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board granted a 50 percent disability rating for bilateral flat feet with plantar fasciitis effective March 14, 2014, but no earlier. The issue of an earlier effective date was remanded.
- Dismissed
The Board has dismissed all issues of appeal due to the appellant's withdrawal prior to a decision being made.
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