The Board remands the service connection claim for lumbar discopathy due to duty to assist errors, including a need for an addendum medical opinion and potentially missing employment-related physical examination records.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner's opinion is found to be inadequate as it relies on negative evidence without addressing all pertinent lay evidence.
- Claimed conditions
- lumbar discopathy
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- December 4, 2025
- Citation
- A25104654
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 882 · 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 A25104654.
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.
- Dismissed
The Veteran's appeals for increased evaluations and compensation were dismissed due to his death while the appeal was pending.
- Granted
The Veteran's lumbar spine disability is rated at 40% effective from May 21, 2014. The left wrist carpal tunnel syndrome (claimed as hands) is granted a rating of 40% effective from May 7, 2018.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Veteran's claim is being remanded due to the need for additional development, including new VA examinations and clarification of his lumbar radiculitis diagnosis.
- Denied
The Board denied the veteran's claims for increased ratings for his service-connected lumbar myositis, psychoneurosis and conversion hysteria, residuals of shrapnel wounds of the left thigh and pelvis with retained foreign bodies and scars, and residuals of shell fragment wounds of the right thigh and left leg. The veteran was also denied entitlement to a total disability rating based on individual unemployability due to service-connected disabilities.
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