The Board remands the claim for service connection for right knee degenerative arthritis with total knee replacement due to a lack of adequate medical evidence and procedural deficiencies.
The deciding factor: The May 2021 and October 2024 VA opinions are found inadequate as they do not address the etiology of the Veteran's osteoarthritis necessitating a total knee replacement, fail to consider all relevant theories of entitlement, and rely on an absence of evidence in the medical records.
- Claimed conditions
- right knee degenerative arthritis with total knee replacement
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- December 15, 2025
- Citation
- A25107828
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 835 · 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 A25107828.
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.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claims for service connection for right knee degenerative arthritis with total knee replacement and left hip degenerative arthritis with joint replacement as secondary to the right knee condition, due to an inadequate VA examination.
- 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.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for an initial evaluation in excess of 10 percent for his service-connected coronary artery disease, finding that the evidence did not support a higher rating based on the severity of his condition.
- Denied
The Veteran's service-connected musculoligamentous strain, right knee, is currently rated at 10 percent and the Board finds that a higher rating is not warranted.
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